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METROPOLITAN 
NEW YORK 

Its Geography, History and Civics 


BY 

HUBERT R. CORNISH 

II 

PRINCIPAL, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 
PATERSON, N. J. 

AND 

JOSEPH T. GRIFFIN' 

PRINCIPAL, PUBLIC SCHOOLS, 

CITY OF NEW YORK 


D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 


BOSTON 

NEW YORK 

CHICAGO 

ATLANTA 

SAN FRANCISCO 

DALLAS 


^ 




D. C. 


Copyright, 1925, 


/ 


HEATH AND COMPANY 
2D5 


V t. 

°> ’) 

v < 4 


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Printed in the United States of America by 

J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 

APR 00 *25 J , ^ 

©Cl A8'/J2072 



PREFACE 


r . 

^ This book about Metropolitan 
New York is an attempt to give an 
account of the life, growth, and de¬ 
velopment of New York City and 
the district that comprises the 
metropolitan area. 

Geographical conditions have 
favored the development of a 
densely populated area round 
about New York Bay. With the 
growth of population many vital 
questions have presented them¬ 
selves for settlement. 

The development of the harbor 
to meet the needs of the shipping; 
the care of the railroad traffic; 
providing for the movement of 
vast numbers of people to and 
from work; housing and feeding 
the great population; caring for 
recreation al and educational 
needs; taking care of the sick; 
protecting the city against fire; 
giving the people police protec¬ 
tion; and planning for the future 
are but a few of the many ques¬ 
tions that the authorities of the 
metropolitan area are called upon 
to settle. These matters are given 


as full treatment as a book of this 
size permits. 

Throughout the book the very 
close relationship of the city and 
the suburban area has been borne 
in mind. To think of one without 
the other is to miss a vital affair 
in the life of the people of the dis¬ 
trict discussed. 

Life in New York has been 
stressed but only because of the re¬ 
lationship of the great city to the 
other communities of the region. 

Geography, history, and the 
daily life of the people are inti¬ 
mately related. This fact has led 
the authors to include the different 
types of materials that appear in 
this book. 

The collection of material and 
pictures has led to many calls on 
city officials, officers of Boards of 
Trade and various societies in 
New York City. All requests have 
been courteously received and ma¬ 
terial and advice have been freely 
given. The authors thank all who 
have so generously given their as¬ 
sistance in making this book pos¬ 
sible. 


J. T. G., H. R. C. 








































































CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Metropolitan Area. 1 


Entering New York City. The Country and the City. Railway Sta¬ 
tions. Metropolitan New York. The Census Bureau Area. The 
Port Authority Area. The Area of the Future. 

II The City and Area from Early Times to the Present .... 5 

Change in City Life. The Site of New York in 1609. Hudson’s Dis¬ 
coveries. Settlement on Manhattan Island. Purchase of the Island 
from the Natives. The Settlement in 1628, 1643, and 1653. The 
Geography of Manhattan Island and Its Ownership. Early New 
York. Taking of New Netherlands by the Duke of York. The Name 
Changed to New York in 1664. Origin of Wall Street. The Battery. 

The Dutch Take Manhattan in 1673. Restored to the British. New 
York Becomes the Foremost City of the United States. The Growth 
of New York Since 1790. New York Compared with Other Cities in 
the United States. The Area of the City. The Extent of the City. 
Manhattan Thought of as New York City. New York the Capital of 
the Nation. The Growth of New York into Greater New York. 

III The Boroughs of New York.12 

Knowing New York. Every Citizen a Loyal Citizen. The Limits of 
the Boroughs. The Extent of Manhattan Borough. A Rock Founda¬ 
tion to the City. Trade and Commerce in Manhattan. Manhattan 
the Center of Many Interests. Manhattan’s Offering to the Visitor. 
Means of Travel in Manhattan. The Borough of Brooklyn. Brook¬ 
lyn’s Claim to Greatness. The Beginning of Brooklyn. The Extent 
of Brooklyn. The Waterfront. Brooklyn, a City of Homes. Brook¬ 
lyn Compared with Other Cities. Brooklyn’s Relation to the Other 
Boroughs. The Population of Brooklyn. Travel Between Brooklyn 
and Manhattan. Streets of Brooklyn. Industries of Brooklyn. 

Parks of the Borough, Libraries, Museums. The Bronx. The 
Size of The Bronx. Early History of The Bronx. Homes in the 
Borough. Industries in The Bronx. Streets. Parks in The Bronx. 

The Great Extent of Queens. Communities in Queens. The 


v 




VI 


CONTENTS 


/HAt- l£i!V _ _ 

Borough Compared with Rhode Island. Travel Between Manhattan 
and Queens. Waterfront in Queens. Industries in the Borough. 
Parks. The Doorway of the Nation. Staten Island in Early Days. 
The First Settlement. Staten Island a Part of New York State. The 
Shape, Size, and Position of Staten Island. Advantages of Its Loca¬ 
tion. Commerce and Industries. Railroads of the Island. Tube to 
Brooklyn. The Surface of the Island. The Towns on Staten Island. 
New York a Place of Many Interests. The People of New York. His¬ 
toric Connections. Nathan Hale. Robert Fulton and His Steamboat. 
The Foreign Born of New York. Some Contrasts Found in the City. 

IV The Metropolitan Area in New Jersey. 

West of the Hudson River. Description of This Section. Closely Re¬ 
lated to New York. Newark, the First City in New Jersey. First 
Settlement of Newark. Location of Newark. Early Prosperity. 
Newark, an Industrial Center. Seth Boyden. The City in 1840. The 
Present City. Its Many Industries. A Shopping Center. Port 
Newark. Advantages of Its Location. Means of Travel to Other 
Places. Parks. Education. Public Welfare. The Suburbs of 
Newark. The Sail and Harbor City. Elizabeth. History and In¬ 
dustries. Other Towns Near Newark. The Bayonne Peninsula. Cities 
Near the River and Bay. Jersey City. Its History. Railway Ter¬ 
minal. Waterfront. Connections with Other Places. Industrial 
Growth. Principal Industries. Public Welfare in Jersey City. 
Bayonne. Location and Industries. Hoboken. The Growth of Ho¬ 
boken. Its History. Excellent Location. Its Industries. The 
Stevens Institute of Technology. West Hoboken. Its Size and Indus¬ 
tries. Towns Near Jersey City and Hoboken. Paterson. Its Location. 
History of the City. Paterson the City of Mills. Its Industries. 
School System. Towns Near Paterson. Passaic. Its Industries, 
Hackensack and Towns Near It. Better Transportation Enlarging the 
Metropolitan District. New York’s Neighbors. Cities on the Outer 
Edge of the District. The Interstate Park. The Bear Mountain 
Bridge. 

V The Metropolitan District in New York State. 

Cities and Towns North of New York City. The City of Yonkers. 
Its Location and Industries. Towns North of Yonkers. Mount Ver¬ 
non. Other Towns in the Section. Westchester County a Play¬ 
ground. Long Island Suburbs. Cities and Towns. Oyster Bay, 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

Home of Theodore Roosevelt. Mineola. Garden City. Other Com¬ 
munities in Nassau County. New Yorkers’ Homes in Connecticut. 
The City’s and Suburb’s Dependence on Each Other. 

VI The Life of the People. 

The Thought of the Previous Chapters. New York Bay Attracts a 
Great Population. The Small Community. New York, a Village. 
When New York Was a Garden. The Surrounding Country a 
Hunter’s Paradise. The Wild Life. Village Life. The Schoolmaster 
of 1661. New York a Type of City Life. 

VII Keeping the City Clean. 

The Conflict with Dirt. The Housewife and Her Cleaning. Dirt and 
Health. Waste in New York City. Garbage Collection One Hundred 
Years Ago. Street Cleaning To-day. The Commission of Street 
Cleaning. .Waste in the Home. The Collection of Waste. The 
Disposal of Waste. The Problems of Disposal. Old New York. Made 
Land. Receptacles for Waste. Litter on the Streets. Street Sweep¬ 
ing. Children’s Help in Keeping Streets Clean. Flushing of Streets. 
The “Squeegee.” The Citizen’s Part. The Removal of Snow. Dis¬ 
posal of Liquid Waste. Sewers and Sewage. The Menace of Sewage. 
The Continuous Job of “Plouse Cleaning.” 

VIII The Care of Life and Property. 

Our Dependence upon the Policeman. The Guardian of Public Safety. 
The Police Department. The Patrolman. The Care of Traffic. Spe¬ 
cial Police Squads. The Marine Squad. The Aerial Squad. Motor¬ 
cycle Squad. Bomb Squad. The Gangster Squad. Bureau of Missing 
Persons. Identification of Criminals. The Rogues’ Gallery. The 
Department of Licenses. The Public Safety Bureau. Education of 
Drivers. The Training of Policemen. The Police a “Peace Army.” 
Fire Losses. Frequency of Fires in New York City. The Fire De¬ 
partment. The Modern Fire Department. The Training of Firemen. 
The Old and New Apparatus. The Fireman a Lifesaver. Paying 
Fire Losses. Fire Prevention. Fire Prevention Taught in the Schools. 
Cautions in Case of Fire. 

IX A Giant Schoolhouse . *. 

A Host to Educate. The Natural History Museum. A School With¬ 
out Books. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Art Treasures. The 






CONTENTS 


viii 

CHAPTER 

Aquarium. Fish from All the Seas. The Zoological Park. The 
Animal World Brought to the City. Other Parks and Museums. 
The Public School. The City Board of Education. The Management 
of the Schools. The School System. The Elementary School Special 
Classes. The Junior and Senior High Schools. Trade Schools. Con¬ 
tinuation Schools. Schools at Night. Bureau of Lectures. Colleges 
and Universities. Compulsory Education Laws. Attendance Depart¬ 
ment. Libraries an Aid to Education. The City Library Systems. 
The New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. 

X Play Places .. 

Importance of Play. Definition of Play. The Value of Play. Good 
Places to Play. Fun That Pays. The Department of Parks. Parks 
of New York. The Use of Park Lands. City Playgrounds. The 
Beaches. Street Playgrounds. Important Parks. Points of Interest 
in Central Park. Other Parks. The Care of the Play Places. 
Theaters. Places of Entertainment. Recreation for All. 

XI The Health of the City.. 

Keeping Well. The Cost of Illness. Avoiding Illness. The Board of 
Health, Its Duties. Preventable Diseases. The Worst Disease. Child 
Hygiene. Care of Babies. The Bureau of Foods and Drugs. The 
Sanitary Bureau. Making Better Homes. Public Health Education. 
Bureau of Records. The City and the Health of Its People. 

XII Taking Care of the Sick and Needy.. 

The City and the Unfortunate. Charity for All. The Debtors’ Prison. 
Punishment of the Feeble-minded. City Hospitals for the Needy. 
The Metropolitan Hospital. Ambulance Service. Nurses and Their 
Training. Relief for the Distressed. Social Service. The Poorhouse. 
The Care of Orphans. Social Work in Public Schools. Special 
Classes in the Schools. Asylums and Homes in New York City. A 
Generous City. Giving to the Needy. 

XIII Offenders Against the Law. 

The Newspaper and Crime. Law Breakers. Respect for Law. Pun¬ 
ishment for Crime. Punishment in Early Days. The Prisons of 
Other Days. Change of Attitude Toward Offenders. A Model Prison. 
City Prisons. State Prisons and Reformatories. “Homes” for Of¬ 
fenders. Reformation Against Imprisonment. The Prison Terms. The 






CONTENTS 


IX 


CHAPTER rAGB 

Indeterminate Sentence. Prison Reform. The Mutual Welfare 
League. The Result of Crime. The Criminal Sure of Punishment. 

XIV Water and Food Supply ..88 

Uses of Water in the City. Water Used in New York. Water Supply 


and the City. A Good Source of Water Supply. Sources of Water 
in Early Times. The First Water Company. Need of a Better 
Supply. The Croton Aqueduct. Difficult to Build First Aqueduct. 

The New Croton Aqueduct. Still More Water Needed. The Cats- 
kill Water Supply. Reservoirs, Tunnels, and Aqueducts of the 
Catskill System. Purifying the Water. Carrying the Water to the 
Homes. The Water Supply of Manhattan. The Supply of Brooklyn. 
Queens’ Supply of Water. Richmond’s Supply. The Cost of the 
Water Systems. The Bureau of Water Supply. Water Supplied to 
All. The Necessity of Food. Distributing Food. Food on the Farm 
and in the City. The Number to Be Fed in New York. Food Used 
in New York. The Daily Food Bill. Problem of Delivering Food to 
the City. The City Market. Department of Public Markets. The 
Bureau of Physical Plants. Inspection of Food. Purity of Foods. 
Inspection of Milk, Baked Goods, and Slaughter House Products. 
Waste of Food. Cold Storage. Canned Food. Pure Food Laws. 
Honest Measure. Bureau of Weights and Measures. The Cost of 
Food. 

XV Lighting the City . . . 101 

The White Way. Lighting in Early Times. Street Lighting Long 
Ago. Electric Lights Introduced. Its Improvement Over the Old 
System. The Problem of Lighting. The Bureau of Gas and Elec¬ 
tricity. Street and Park Lighting. Types of Lights. Traffic Lights. 
Lighting of Bridges and Driveways. Lighting the Home. Lights in 
Public Buildings. Improvements Needed in Lighting. Combination 
of Beauty and Service in Street Lighting. 

XVI Communication. 105 

Sending Messages in Early Days. The City at Every Desk. The 
Telephone in Home and Business. The Postal Service. The Tele¬ 
graph. The Ocean Cable. Wireless and the Radio. Broadcasting. 

The Newspaper. Printing and Publishing in New York City. Test¬ 
ing Value of Modern Communicating Agencies. 





X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XVII Transportation. 

A View of the City’s Business. Steamship Lines. Foreign Trade. 
Docks and Piers in the City. Railroads. Automobile Trucks. 
Bridges. The Bridges Over the East River. Tunnels in New York 
and New Jersey. The Vehicular Tunnel. Travel in the City of New 
York. Difficulties of Transit in New York City. A Comparison with 
Chicago. Elevated Lines. Subway Lines. Control and Ownership 
of Transit Lines. Motor Passenger Vehicles. Omnibuses. Taxis. 
Streets in New York. Plan of the Streets. Pavement of Streets. 
Obstructing the Street. Below the Street Level. Traffic on the Streets. 
Every One’s Obligation in Care of Streets. 

XVIII The Business of the City. 

New York a Business Center. Shipping Advantages. A Railway 
Center. The Whole World Its Market. Great Industries of New 
York. The Clothing Industry. Value of Manufactured Products. 
Many Banks in New York. The Ever-changing City. Stores and 
Shops. The Call for Laborers. The City’s Part in Business. Depart¬ 
ment of Plants and Structures. The Department of Docks. The 
Transit Commission. 

XIX Building and Buildings. 

New Buildings Everywhere. Building Recorded in Newspapers. 
Building in Outlying Sections. Inspection of Buildings. Tenement 
House Laws. New and Old Law Tenements. Business Buildings. 
Zoning and Building. The Skyscraper. The Elevator. Structural 
Steel in Construction. The Old and the New Skyscraper. Famous 
Buildings in New York. 

XX Laws and Lawmakers.. 

Deportment Records. Standards for Conduct. City Charters. State 
Laws. Making Laws in the Legislatures. National Laws. City Af¬ 
fairs. The New York City Charter. Home Rule Amendment. City 
Lawmakers. The Board of Aldermen. The Board of Estimate and 
Apportionment. Expenses of the City. The City Budget. Items in 
the City Budget. The American City and Its Laws. 

XXI Planning the City... 

Laying Out the First Streets. Streets in New Amsterdam.. Old 
Broadway. The 1807 Plan of the Manhattan Streets. The Washing- 







CONTENTS 


xi 

PAGE 

ton Plan. Planned Streets. Suburban Highways. Parkways and 
Boulevards. Parks Needed in the City. Transit Questions. The 
Crowded Sidewalks. The Movement of Passengers. Number of 
Commuters. Railway Terminals. Plans for Suburban Transit. Super 
Streets. Moving Sidewalks. Removal of Elevated Lines. Subway 
Building. Plans for Improving the Harbor. Improvement of the 
Waterfront. The Port of Newark. The New York Port Authority. 

Plans of the Port Authority. Plans for the “Greater’’ New York. 
Committee on a Regional Plan for New York and Its Environs. The 
Plans of This Commission. Plans for an Increased Water Supply. 

The Buildings of the Future. The Zoning Law. Centers of Various 
Interests in New York. The Commercial Center. Monuments and 
Memorials. The City Beautiful of the Future. 

Appendix I—Leading Dates in the History of the Metropolitan District 150 

Appendix II—Population of New York City with Its Suburbs . . . 151 

Appendix III—Museums in New York City.. 154 

Appendix IV—Some of the Great Buildings in the City of New York . 155 






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METROPOLITAN 
NEW YORK 


CHAPTER I 

The Metropolitan Area 


Entering New York City. —A pas¬ 
senger from the West on a train 
bound for New York City was seen 
to arise, put on his overcoat, and 
make all plans for leaving the 
train. Other passengers seemed 
to be in no hurry; they continued 
to read their papers or to visit 
with their neighbors as usual. 
They knew there was more than 
twenty miles to travel before 
reaching the city station. The 
first passenger was a stranger go¬ 
ing to the city for the first time. 
Why do you suppose he thought 
he had reached the city so long be¬ 
fore he actually arrived there! 

The Country and the City.— In the 
early stages of his journey the 
towns were few and far apart. 



Brown Bros. 


An eighteen hour train between New York 
and Chicago. 

They were not busy towns like the 
ones that he saw near the large 
city. Few passengers left the 
train in the country towns, and in 
some cases but three or four new 




2 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



SISSS'SSIft Rk 
EESSS’S't. ASS& S £ 

'S«i£?S Skip*'! 
BETS £‘.*. *«?•* r. «. 
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M.rc re err-e s - ><**»♦? 
Wf**si£g»«c §*mI 

ifepil 

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Brown Bros. 

The Grand Central Station on Forty-second Street, New York City. 


passengers got on to his train 
when it stopped at a town. All 
was changed in the towns within 
commuting distance from New 
York. It seemed to the stranger 
that every one had business away 
from home. He guessed right. In 
many of the suburban towns a 
large majority of the business 
men and women spend their days 
working in New York. 

The country man noticed that 
the highways leading into the city 
were much busier than his quiet 


country roads. Freight and pas¬ 
senger automobiles crowded each 
other as they hurried along. 

His train was a “through” 
train, so it did not stop at many of 
the smaller suburban stations. It 
passed through town after town 
until the city proper was reached 
—even then it took fifteen minutes 
to reach the city terminal. The 
station at which our friend ar¬ 
rived was the Grand Central Sta¬ 
tion on Forty-second Street. The 
other great terminal station in 














THE METROPOLITAN AREA 


3 



Courtesy of the Transit Commission, State of New York. 

This map shows the limits of the areas discussed. Study it carefully. 


Pennsylvania and railway terminals in another 


New York is the 
Station between Thirty-second and 
Thirty-third streets on Seventh 
Avenue. These great stations 
where thousands of people arrive 
or depart each day are placed as 
near the center of the city as pos¬ 
sible for the convenience of the 
travelers. There are other ter¬ 
minal stations on the New Jersey 
side of the Hudson River. More 
will he said about the railroads 


chapter. 

Metropolitan New York.— Let us 

now turn to the region known as 
the metropolitan area that the 
countryman thought of as being 
the city itself. 

New York City has definite 
boundaries like all other cities, but 
because of its great size it affects 
a large area around it. The city 
along with the region round about 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK AREAS 

AREAS INCLUDED 

LEGEND 

AREA 

5QMI5 

POPULATION, I9?0 

TOTAL 

KKS4ML 

WITHIN 50 MILES RADIUS^* WWAttWi) 
NEW YORK AND ENVIRONS* 


5522 

8763000 

8374000 

6367000 

7974 000 
7 910 415 

5 620040 

1057 

1626 

ZZ8Q 

5450 

6608 

18 736 

METROPOLITAN TRANSIT PLAN 

PORT OF NEW YORK AUTHORITY .. 

METROPOLITAN DISTRICT.**___ 

CITY OF NEW YORK_ 

— 

3766 

1463 

1133 

293 


























4 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


it and in many ways affected by 
the city’s life and business, is 
called the metropolitan area. 

The metropolitan New York 
area differs in size according to 
what side of the life of the city 
concerns us. The United States 
Census Bureau defines it as all of 
the city itself and all other cities 
and smaller communities within 
ten miles from the city boundaries. 
The New York Port Authority is 
interested in transportation prob¬ 
lems in New York and the large 
cities near it, so the metropolitan 
area of the Port Authority is 
somewhat larger than the Census 
Bureau area. The Port of New 
York District as outlined by the 
Port Authority extends roughly 
from the City Hall in Manhattan, 


twenty-five miles to the north, six¬ 
teen miles to the east, twenty-three 
miles to the south, and twenty 
miles to the west. It includes one 
hundred and five villages, towns, 
and cities within its boundaries. 
This body is directed by law to 
make studies of the ways and 
means of developing the port, es¬ 
pecially as to the question of 
transportation. 

Plans for the city of the future 
call for surveys and studies of the 
country from a few miles north of 
Newburgh on the Hudson to the 
Asbury Park section in New Jer¬ 
sey. This section is between 
eighty and ninety miles from the 
eastern to the western bound¬ 
ary. (See map for the different 
areas.) 


Questions 


I. What do you mean by commuting dis¬ 
tance? What does the word “metropol¬ 
itan” mean? 

II. How far from where you live are the 


boundaries of the largest metropolitan area 
discussed in this chapter? 

III. Why consider such a large area in 
plans for the future? 


THE CITY AND AREA FROM EARLY TIMES 


5 


CHAPTER II 

The City and Area from Early Times to the Present 


The Present, an Age of Change.— 

The present age is one of rapid 
changes. Great buildings have re¬ 
placed the small structures of fifty 



Brown Bros. 


Dyckman farm house, one of the oldest 
homes in New York. 

years ago. Automobiles have 
taken the place of horse-drawn 
vehicles on land, and the giant 
self-propelled boats have driven 
the sailboats from the seas. The 


hum of the aeroplane motor is as 
common as it was strange a few 
years ago. 

It is difficult for us of such an 
age to journey back to the peace¬ 
ful scene that greeted Henry Hud¬ 
son in 1609 when he first sighted 
the river that now bears his 
name. 1 A Hudson or East River 
without the busy ferryboat, the 
hustling tug, and the stately ocean¬ 
going vessels is hard for us to 
imagine. If we include in this pic¬ 
ture Manhattan Island without its 
skyscrapers and thousands of 
other buildings, the scene is still 
stranger. 

Hudson’s Discoveries. —H u d s o n 
thought the river that he had 
found might be the passage across 
the continent that had long been 
sought by European explorers. 
His journey up the river con¬ 
vinced him of the folly of this 
notion. He did learn, however, 
something of real value to the 


1 The Hudson River is sometimes called the “Rhine of America.” The Indians called 
it Skatemuc. One European called it the “Great Stream.” The Dutch called it the 
Mauritius after the Union General Maurice. To others it was the North River or the 
River Flowing out of the Mountains. Not until after 1664 did Englishmen give it the 
name “Hudson.” 





METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Dutch people by whom he was em¬ 
ployed. He learned that trading 
with the Indians for furs might 
prove very profitable. He as¬ 
cended the river as far as Albany 
and then turned back. His little 
vessel, the Half Moon, was a 
strange sight to the natives. As 
compared with the water crafts 
to he found on the Hudson River 
to-day, it would be as strange a 
sight to us as it was to the Indians. 
Hudson’s discovery gave the 
Dutch a claim to the Hudson River 
country. They claimed it under 
the name of New Netherland. 

The Settlement on Manhattan 
Island.— In 1626 a permanent set¬ 
tlement was made on “the island 
of Manhatas” by colonists of the 
Dutch West India Company. This 
settlement was called New Am¬ 
sterdam. In the same year one of 
the greatest real estate deals of 
history was made. Peter Minuit, 
the director general of the prov¬ 
ince, purchased the part of the 
city of New York now known as 
Manhattan Island from the In¬ 
dians for an assortment of heads, 
buttons, cloth, and trinkets, said to 
have been worth about twenty-four 
dollars. What a trifling sum, in¬ 
deed, for land that at the present 
time commands a yearly rental of 


several times twenty-four dollars 
for the use of a square foot of 
ground in the busy sections of the 
city. 

Two hundred and seventy people 
had settled in the village on the 



Brown Bros. 


The purchase of Manhattan Island from the 
Indians. 

southern end of Manhattan Island 
by 1628. Colonists continued to 
arrive from various countries in 
Europe. So many, in fact, that by 
1643 it is said that eighteen dif¬ 
ferent languages were spoken by 
townsmen of New Amsterdam, as 
it was then called. By 1653 the 
settlement had grown to be a city. 
In that year it was granted a mu¬ 
nicipal government similar to that 
of cities in Holland. 

The Ownership of the Colony.— 



THE CITY AND AREA FROM EARLY TIMES 


7 



Brown Bros. 

An early view of Fort Amsterdam from an engraving made in Holland. 


The geography of the country 
played an important part in de¬ 
termining the ownership of the 
colony founded by the Dutch at 
the mouth of the Hudson River. 
The New Englanders and Great 
Britain claimed the Hudson River 
country. The Hudson was a nat¬ 
ural western boundary of the set¬ 
tlements in Connecticut and Mas¬ 
sachusetts. It was also the one 
great waterway that gave the 
settlers of western New England 
an outlet to the sea along with a 
good harbor for shipping. 

To make good the British claim, 
the Duke of York sent out a fleet 
in 1664 to seize the Dutch colony. 
Governor Peter Stuyvesant fret¬ 


ted and declared that he would re¬ 
sist, but he was obliged to sur¬ 
render. The city was taken by 
the British without bloodshed. 
Along with New Amsterdam the 
whole of New Netherlands passed 
into the hands of the British. 

The name of New Netherlands 
was changed to New York and the 
same name was given to New Am¬ 
sterdam. This name was selected 
in honor of the British proprietor. 

Early New York.—New York of 
1664 had a population of fifteen 
hundred souls. The village was 
built on the southern part of Man¬ 
hattan Island, and extended from 
the East River to the Hudson 
River. Along the northern bound- 








8 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



The Palisades on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. 


ary was a great wall of earth 
along the top of which was a pali¬ 
sade of logs. The logs were set on 
end in the earth; their upper ends 
were sharpened and all were 
joined together by bolts and 
straps of iron. This formed a bar¬ 
rier against enemies that might 
approach from the north. Wall 
Street, one of the famous streets 
of the world, now occupies the 
ground where this old defensive 
wall stood. This street, is the 


banking center of the United 
States, if not the world. At the 
southern extremity of the island 
was a little stone battery over¬ 
looking the bay and the two 
rivers. The name, “ The Bat¬ 
tery,” is still applied to the south¬ 
ern waterfront point of the island 
where the little fort stood. 

In 1673 the Dutch, while at war 
with England, seized Manhattan, 
but when peace was arranged the 
following year, the British re- 



THE CITY AND AREA FROM EARLY TIMES 


9 


sumed control of the province. 
From then until the Revolution 
the government of the city was in 
the hands of successive provincial 
governors sent over from Great 
Britain. 

New York Becomes a Great City.— 

With the coming of the industrial 
development of the United States, 
New York soon became the fore¬ 
most city of the New World. Its 
location on one of the finest har¬ 
bors in the world, also its position 
at the end of the only level route 
to the Mississippi Valley, decided 
its place among American cities. 
The opening of the Erie Canal in 
1825 and the building of railroads 
a few years later started the state 
and the city of New York toward 
a wonderful commercial growth. 
Within one hundred years New 
York has grown from a population 
of less than two hundred thousand 
to a city of more than six million 
people—the metropolis of the 
world. 

The population of the city at 
the present time (1925) is how 
many times what it was when the 
first United States Census was 
taken (1790)! 

New York and Other Cities in the 
United States— One large city in 
the United States, Los Angeles, is 


larger in area than New York 
City. Chicago, the second city in 
size in the country, is a little more 
than half as large as New York. 
It has less than half the popula¬ 
tion of New York. Statistics 
show how New York compares 
with other cities in the United 
States. A study of them will 
make clear that New York is not 
only the metropolis of the nation 
but it also is far ahead of all other 
cities in population. 

The Extent of New York City.— 
The Battery, at the extreme south¬ 
ern end of Manhattan Island, is 
fifteen and one half miles from the 
extreme northern boundary of the 
city, seventeen miles from the 
eastern boundary of Queens Bor¬ 
ough, and nineteen miles from the 
southern point of Staten Island. 

With a population so great and 
an area so immense, it is not 
strange that the average citizen of 
New York does not know his city 
except as his business may call 
him to various parts of it. To 
many people both in and away 
from New York, Manhattan Island 
is the New York City. This is 
true largely because the great 
centers of business are located on 
Manhattan Island. The great 
banking center is on Wall Street. 



10 



































































































































































































































































THE CITY AND AREA FROM EARLY TIMES 


11 


The municipal government build¬ 
ings are a few blocks north of the 
Battery. Many large department 
stores are farther up town. 
Around Forty-second Street is the 
theater district. All this calls 
much attention to Manhattan and 
away from other parts of the 
city. 

New York Acquires Territory.—A 

brief history of the growth in ter¬ 
ritory of the city should give us a 
better idea of the city as it is to¬ 
day. 

In 1790 the city extended from 
the Battery to the lower end of 
City Hall Park. At that time New 
York was the capital of the nation, 
and continued so until 1797. 

West Farms and Kingsbridge 
were annexed to the city in 1874. 


In 1895 Westchester, Eastches- 
ter, Pelham, and Wakefield were 
annexed. The greater city was 
formed on January 1, 1898, when 
the city of Brooklyn, all of Staten 
Island, and what is now Queens 
County, became a part of the city 
(sometimes called Greater New 
York). 

The city is divided by natural 
boundaries into four divisions— 
Manhattan Island, The Bronx, the 
part of the city on Long Island, 
and Staten Island. For purposes 
of government the city is divided 
into five boroughs. Each of these 
boroughs is a great city in itself. 
They are Manhattan, Brooklyn, 
The Bronx, Queens, and Rich¬ 
mond. See the map for the loca¬ 
tion of the different boroughs. 


Questions 


I. What are some of the changes in city- 
life within the last fifty years? 

II. What is a “good location” for a 
city? 

III. Trace on a map the level route to 
the Mississippi River. 


IV. Give four reasons for the growth 
of New York City. 

V. What is the advantage of the many 
miles of waterfront in New York City? 

VI. Why is it difficult to know New 
York City? 


12 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



CHAPTER III 


The Boroughs of New York 


Knowing New York.—Every resi¬ 
dent of New York is first of all a 
New Yorker; secondly, lie is inter¬ 
ested in seeing his home borough 
grow and prosper; and thirdly, he 
should be a good citizen of his own 
little home community. A good 
slogan for every home, school, 
church, and business place would 
be, 4 ‘Know Your City.” 


Brown Bros. 


Washington arriving at the Battery in 1789. 


Brown Bros. 

City Hall Park as it would appear if the 
Post Office building were removed. 

Manhattan Borough. — The Bor¬ 
ough of Manhattan includes not 
only Manhattan Island, but Gov¬ 


ernors, Bedloe, Blackwells (now 
called Welfare Island), Ward’s, 
and Oyster islands. The island of 
Manhattan lies between the Hud¬ 
son River on the west, where it 
flows into the New York Bay at 
the Battery, and on the east the 
East River or channel connecting 
Long Island Sound and New York 
Bay. Spuyten Duyvil Creek and 
the Harlem River separate the 
island from the mainland on the 
north and northeast. From north 
to south the island is lS 1 /^ miles 





THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


13 



Brown Bros. 

Looking toward Broadway across Madison Square. Fifth Avenue and Broadway cross 

at this point. 


long, and at Fourteenth Street it 
is 2!/4 miles wide. 

A large part of the island is of 
rock foundation. Upon this solid 
rock have been built great struc¬ 
tures that are the wonder of the 
age. 

Commerce and Trade in Manhat¬ 
tan.—From the standpoint of 
trade and commerce Manhattan is 
the most important of all the bor¬ 
oughs. Here are to be found 
many industries that exceed those 


of any other city in the quantity of 
output. Being an island, it has a 
waterfront of many miles that 
may be used for docks. It is the 
oldest of all the boroughs and so 
took the lead in annexing the other 
parts of the city to make the 
greater city. The center of the 
city government is located in this 
borough. The many great depart¬ 
ment stores in the borough cater 
to the trade of millions of the resi¬ 
dents of New York as well as to 






14 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 

Pennsylvania Hotel at Seventh Avenue and 
Thirty-third Street. 

an army of transient visitors who 
come to New York to shop, to 
work, to attend conventions, or to 
see the sights of the city. This 
army of daily visitors to New 
York who commute daily or come 
from other parts of the country 
exceeds in number the whole pop¬ 
ulation of the states of Arizona, 
Vermont, or New Mexico. 

Attractions for Visitors. — The 
many hotels in Manhattan provide 
food and shelter for the visitors 
to the city. The numerous the¬ 


aters give them entertainment. 
For those who care for other 
forms of recreation, Manhattan 
has one of the greatest art mu¬ 
seums in the world, the Metropoli¬ 
tan Museum of Art in Central 
Park with its main entrance on 
Fifth Avenue at Eighty-second 
Street. There is also the Ameri¬ 
can Museum of Natural History at 
Seventy-seventh Street and Cen¬ 
tral Park West. In Battery Park 
is the Aquarium, housed in a build¬ 
ing that was originally built as a 


Brown Bros. 

Battery Park. 

fort and was used to defend the 
city in the War of 1812. There 
are also numerous parks in Man¬ 
hattan. Chief among these is 











THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


15 



Brown Bros. 

Looking north along the east side of Central Park. 


Central Park between Fifty-ninth 
and One Hundred and Tenth 
streets. The New York Public 
Library also is one of the impor¬ 
tant places that draw people to 
Manhattan. Columbia University 
on Morningside Heights is one of 
the largest universities in the 
world. New York University has 
its central offices and many of its 
buildings at Washington Square. 
All of these places for recreation 
and education will be discussed in 
another chapter. 

To land the host of workers and 
visitors in Manhattan there are 
railways with terminals at con¬ 
venient places, subways, tube 
trains, ferryboats, and thousands 
of privately owned automobiles. 


It is no wonder that with all these 
attractions Manhattan is often 
thought of as the city of New 
York. Indeed a beautiful book of 
illustrations prepared a few years 
ago on “New York” gave all of 
its space, except two or three pic¬ 
tures, to views of buildings and 
streets of the south half of Man¬ 
hattan Island. 

Other boroughs than Manhattan 
lay claim to greatness, however. 
Let us see upon what they base 
their claims. 

The Borough of Brooklyn.—It 

seems best to first consider the 
borough next in population and 
four times the area of Manhattan, 
the Borough of Brooklyn. A bor¬ 
ough with so many people and so 




16 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


much room to expand surely has 
a great future before it. 

The beginning of Brooklyn was 
the little settlement made in 1643 



almost a mile from the Long 
Island shore about midway be¬ 
tween Gowanus Creek and Walla- 
bout Bay. This settlement was 
chartered as the village of Brueck- 
len by the Dutch settlers. The 
name was given in honor of the 
little village of Bruecklen in Hol¬ 


land near Amsterdam. The name 
was spelled differently by almost 
every one; Breucklyn, Breuckland, 
Brucklyn, Broucklyn, Brookland, 
and Brookline were some of the 
spellings to be found in the early 
days. Finally during the nine¬ 
teenth century the name as it is 
now was generally adopted. 

The Extent of Brooklyn.—Brook¬ 
lyn includes the county of Kings. 
In it are such well-known districts 
as Bay Ridge, Gravesend, Flat- 
lands, Flatbush, and Coney Island, 
Manhattan, and Brighton beaches. 
It is surrounded by water on three 
sides and has a waterfront of 201.5 
miles. Twenty-five miles of this 
have been improved. The piers 
devoted to foreign commerce alone 
cover 15.6 miles. The longest of 
Brooklyn’s piers is 1,740 feet in 
length. Another pier has an area 
of seven acres. 

A City of Homes.—Brooklyn is 
usually thought of as a city of 
homes; so it is. Late figures show 
130,286 one- and two-family 
houses, nearly fifty thousand tene¬ 
ments, and about three hundred 
elevator apartments. It is not 
only a home city; it is one of the 
greatest commercial and manufac¬ 
turing centers in the United 
States. 














THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


17 



Brown Bros. 

Brooklyn in 1854. 


Brooklyn’s Rank Among Cities.— 

Brooklyn, if considered alone, 
would be the third largest city in 
the United States and would rank 
fifth among the great cities of the 
world. Outside of New York City 
itself, but one city (Chicago, Illi¬ 
nois) exceeds Brooklyn in popu¬ 
lation. 

As compared with other cities, 
Brooklyn exceeds in population 
the combined population of Buf¬ 
falo, Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, 
Yonkers, and Utica in New York 
along with Newark, Jersey City, 
and Paterson in New Jersey. It 


has thirty times the population of 
Nevada. 

Transit in Brooklyn.—The union 
between Brooklyn and the other 
boroughs has been of great benefit 
to all. United as one city, every¬ 
thing has been done to bring the 
different parts of the city closer 
together. In 1898 all travel be¬ 
tween Brooklyn and Manhattan 
was over the Brooklyn Bridge or 
by ferries. To-day three hundred 
thousand passengers can be car¬ 
ried every hour over the bridges, 
through the tunnels, and by the 
ferries that join the two boroughs. 






18 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


This seems a large number, but 
the vast populations of the various 
boroughs increasing by leaps and 
bounds call for more and better 
means of transit. Plans are 
already under way to bring this 
about. 

Brooklyn has 1,258 miles of 
streets, which, if placed end to 
end, would reach from Brooklyn 
to the Gulf of Mexico. Over nine 
hundred miles of these streets are 
paved. There are twenty-nine 
miles of boulevards. 

Industrial Brooklyn.—The indus¬ 
tries of Brooklyn are varied. It 
ranks fourth in output among 
cities of the United States. Some 
of the greatest industries are the 
manufacture of bread and baking 
products, men’s clothing, women’s 
clothing, boots and shoes, confec¬ 
tionery and ice cream, copper, tin 
and sheet iron, and foundry and 
machine products. The following 
table gives some facts about some 
of the important industries in 
Brooklyn: 

No. 

No. Es- Persons Value 
tablish- Em- of 

ments ployed Products 
Boots and Shoes 143 9,725 $45,158,936 

Bread and Bak¬ 
ery Products. 837 6,062 39,397,797 

Men’s Clothing. 507 13,115 35,680,343 


No. 


No. Es¬ 

Persons 

Value 

tablish- 

Em¬ 

of 

Women’s Cloth¬ 

ments 

ployed 

Products 

ing . 

Confection e r y 

558 

8,345 

26,695,969 

and Ice Cream 
Copper, Tin and 

231 

4,465 

25,859,532 

Sheet Iron... 
Foundry and 
Machine 

130 

1,057 

4,550,893 

Products ... 

207 

13,932 

32,417,504 

Furniture. 

118 

2,934 

14,641,657 

Knit Goods.... 
Printing and 

241 

6,702 

43,185,419 

Publishing .. 
Tobacco and 

267 

2,577 

7,804,340 

Cigars. 

408 

2,950 

35,761,932 

Food Products. 
Automobile Re¬ 

100 

1,497 

8,572,981 

pairing . 

Millinery and 

124 

737 

2,543,354 

Lace Goods.. 
Paints and Var¬ 

108 

1,383 

2,153,264 

nishes . 

68 

2,265 

37,677,776 


Parks and Museums.—There are 
fifty-one parks in Brooklyn. The 
largest park of the park system is 
Prospect Park, consisting of 526 
acres. This park is famed for its 
natural beauty. One of the 
world’s most famous playgrounds, 
Coney Island, is enjoyed by thou¬ 
sands of people every year. It has 
a boardwalk that stretches for sev¬ 
eral miles along the ocean front 
which may change the old Coney 







THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


19 


Island into a magnificent shore 
resort like Asbnry Park or At¬ 
lantic City. 

The Brooklyn Public Library 
with its thirty-one branches and 
three stations supplies the citizens 
with reading material and a place 
to study. 

The Brooklyn Museum on East¬ 
ern Parkway compares favorably 
with the museums of the great 
cities of the country. Other fea¬ 
tures of Brooklyn will be dis¬ 
cussed in chapters on special sub¬ 
jects. 

The Bronx.—Next in population 
after Brooklyn is the Borough of 
The Bronx. This borough is called 
“The Fastest Growing Borough 
of the City of New York” by the 
Bronx Board of Trade. If it were 
a separate city, it would rank sixth 
in size among the cities of the 
United States. It is the only one 
of the five boroughs of New York 
that is attached to the mainland. 
In spite of this fact it is bounded 
on three sides by water—the East 
River, Bronx Kills, the Harlem 
River, and the Hudson River—a 
total of eighty miles of waterfront. 
A good portion of this may be de¬ 
veloped for shipping. 

As in the case of Manhattan, the 
greater part of what is now the 


Borough of The Bronx was pur¬ 
chased from the Indians. “Two 
guns, two kettles, two coats, two 
adzes, two shirts, one barrel of 
cider, and six bits of money” was 
the amount paid for this land in 
1639. Jonas Bronck was the pur¬ 
chaser; “Broncksland” was the 
area, and the Bronck (Bronx) 
stream flowed across it. 

Industries in The Bronx.—The 
Bronx, like Brooklyn, is the home 
of thousands of the workers who 
spend their days in the factories 
and business places of Manhattan. 
There are over thirteen thousand 
one-family houses besides ten 
thousand tenements and many 
apartments in The Bronx. Not 
only is it a borough of homes, but 
there are over thirteen hundred 
industrial plants in the borough. 
The table below is from the 1920 
census: 

FACTORIES AND WORKERS 

Number of Total 
Establish- Persons 
ments Engaged 


Apparel Industries (not 



including leather ap¬ 



parel) . 

213 

4,068 

Food Products. 

318 

2,036 

Metal Industry. 

77 

948 

Printing and Publishing 

72 

638 





20 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Number of Total 
Establish- Persons 
ments Engaged 

Chemicals, Paints, Drugs, 

and Allied Lines. 4 7 

Tobacco and Smokers’ 


Supplies. 

177 

582 

Wooden Products. 

69 

3,225 

Leather Industry. 

8 

26 

Jewelry and Kindred 



Lines. 

5 

23 

Vehicles and Allied Lines 

59 

333 

Notions and Novelties, 



not included elsewhere 

9 

109 

House-furnishing Goods 
Stone, Cla!y, and Glass 

27 

125 

Products. 

47 

357 

Miscellaneous Industries 

285 

12,703 

All Industries. 

1,370 

25,150 


Parks in The Bronx.—No other 
borough of the city can boast of 
such parks as The Bronx. The 
park area alone is about one-third 
the entire area of the whole of 
Manhattan Island. Indeed, the 
park space of The Bronx exceeds 
that of Cleveland, Detroit, or Cin¬ 
cinnati. Pelham Bay Park is the 
largest park in the city of New 
York. The two great parks fa¬ 
mous . throughout the country 
among those who enjoy sight-see¬ 
ing are the New York Zoological 
Park and the New York Botanical 
Gardens. Another of the large 
parks is Van Cortlandt Park, on 



Brown Bros. 


Looking across Bryant Park. 

Broadway, near the northern 
boundary of the city. 

The Borough of Queens.—The 
Borough of Queens comprises all 
of Queens County, includes Long 
Island City, and all that portion 
of Long Island north and east of 
Brooklyn. Its eastern boundary 
runs through the village of Hemp¬ 
stead in Nassau County. Within 
its borders are Flushing, Jamaica, 
Richmond Hill, Wood Land, Rock- 
away Beach, Far Rockaway, and 













THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


21 


other well-known communities. 
Some of the residential and indus¬ 
trial sections are Astoria, Elm¬ 
hurst, Jackson Heights, Corona, 
Forest Hills, Kew Gardens, Ridge¬ 
wood, College Point, Whitestone, 
Bayside, and Arverne. 

An Extensive Borough.—The area 
of this borough is a trifle more 
than one-third of the entire area 
of the city of New York. The 
Chamber of Commerce of the bor¬ 
ough calls it “The Biggest Bor¬ 
ough in the Biggest City in the 
World.” 

This borough is about one-tentli 
the size of the state of Rhode 
Island, and has a population 
nearly as large as that state. An 
idea of its size may be obtained 
when we know that there are 
seventy-one miles of railroad 
tracks of the Long Island system 
in the borough. 

Means of Travel in Queens Bor¬ 
ough.—No other borough is better 
provided with connecting links to 
Manhattan Island than Queens. 
There are eight tunnels under the 
East River. Queensboro Bridge 
connects with Manhattan, and Hell 
Gate Bridge with The Bronx. 

Waterfront in Queens.—There are 
ten miles of fine beaches on the 
Atlantic Ocean. Besides this won¬ 


derful stretch of beach, Queens 
has over two hundred miles of 
waterfront on the East River— 
Newtown Creek, Flushing Bay, 
Long Island Sound, and Jamaica 
Bay. With such a fine oppor¬ 
tunity for developing industries, it 
is difficult to tell about the indus¬ 
tries that will probably be found 
in the future Queens. In 1920 
there were already over sixteen 
hundred industrial plants in 
operation, and new ones have been 
added almost daily since that time. 

Although the borough has much 
open country and plenty of breath¬ 
ing space, twenty parks have been 
established in the borough. The 
citizen of the future will appre¬ 
ciate these playgrounds. 

The Doorway of the Nation.—The 
Port of New York may be called 
the doorway of the nation. The 
last of the five boroughs that we 
are to consider, Richmond, is 
at the threshold of this doorway. 
The vast world commerce of New 
York on its way to and from the 
harbor passes within a few hun¬ 
dred yards from Staten Island, 
which is the Borough of Richmond. 
The island is also Richmond 
County. 

Staten Island in Early Times.— 

Before the white man came, 


22 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Staten Island was occupied by the 
Raritans, a branch of the Dela¬ 
ware Indians. The Indian name 
for the island was “Aquehonga 
Man-ack-nong, ’ ’ meaning the place 
of the high sandy banks. Another 
meaning given for the same name 
is 4 ‘the place of the bad woods.” 
Henry Hudson named the island 
‘ 1 Staaten Eglandt, ” as a memorial 
to the States General of the Neth¬ 
erlands under whose direction he 
was sailing. 

The Dutch established the first 
settlement on the island, “Onde 
Dorp” (old town). 

It may seem strange that Staten 
Island, being so near the mainland 
of New Jersey, was not made a 
part of that province in early 
times, but such was not the case. 
Because of a dispute over collect¬ 
ing taxes, the Duke of York, in 
1668, decided that all islands in 
the harbor that could be circum¬ 
navigated in twenty-four hours 
should belong to New York, other¬ 
wise to New Jersey. Captain 
Billopp succeeded in making the 
circuit of the islands, Staten 
Island included, so New York 
claimed it. This claim was dis¬ 
puted until 1833, when a settle¬ 
ment was made in favor of New 
York State. 


The Geography of Staten Island.— 

Staten Island is shaped like a pear 
with the large end at the north. It 
is fourteen miles long and seven 
miles wide at its greatest width. 
The northernmost point is about 
five miles from Manhattan Island. 
It is separated from New Jersey 
by Arthur Kill or Staten Island 
Sound. At the upper end of the 
island the borough is divided from 
Bayonne Peninsula by Kill van 
Kull, a waterway three miles long 
and about one-third of a mile in 
width, opening directly into New 
York Bay. The Narrows separate 
the island from the Borough of 
Brooklyn. The Narrows is a 
strait about one mile wide, and is 
the pathway of more than ten 
thousand oversea passenger and 
freight vessels that visit New 
York Harbor every year. 

Commerce and Industries.—Being 
so near the channels of the 
nation’s commerce gives Staten 
Island a great opportunity to de¬ 
velop commercially and industri¬ 
ally. Its shore line is excellent for 
the building of piers and docks. 
Construction of these piers is be¬ 
ing done now by the city. Some 
interesting facts about the indus¬ 
tries of the borough are given in 
the following table: 


THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


23 


INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS ON 
STATEN ISLAND EMPLOYING FIVE OR 
MORE PERSONS PER PLANT 


No. of 

—No. of Employees— 

Industries Plants 

Office 

Shop 

Total 

1. Building Mate- 





rials . 

10 

32 

898 

930 

2. Chemicals, Col- 





ors, and Dyes 

7 

11 

441 

452 

3. Fireworks .... 

3 

3 

266 

269 

4. Foods, Bever- 





ages, etc. ... 

11 

27 

764 

791 

5. Ice . 

6. Metals and 

3 

2 

41 

43 

Metal Prod¬ 
ucts .. 

8 

79 

568 

647 

7. Paints, Oils, and 





Varnishes .. 

3 

24 

240 

264 

8. Paper, Paper 





Products, and 
Printing .... 

7 

30 

363 

393 

9. Public Utilities 
10. Shipbuil ding 

6 

11 

614 

625 

and Repairing 

18 

280 

6,526 

6,806 

11. Textiles and Al¬ 





lied Products 

27 

5 

839 

844 

12. Miscellaneous . 

17 185 

3,279 

3,464 


120 

689 14,839 15,528 

Staten Island 

is 

SO 

near 

the 


mainland of New Jersey that Ar¬ 
thur Kill has been bridged for 
railway freight traffic. The Balti¬ 
more and Ohio Railroad has 
freight and passenger lines from 
one end of the island to the other. 
Several ferries connect the island 
with Manhattan and Brooklyn. 
Work has also commenced on a 



Brown Bros . 


Trial trip of the Clermont on the Hudson 
River in 1807. 

tunnel that will join the borough 
with Brooklyn. 

The Communities of Staten Island. 

—The surface of the island is un¬ 
even. Dongan Hills in the north¬ 
eastern part of the island is the 
highest point on the Atlantic coast 
between Maine and Florida. The 
rough country of the island is not 
suited for industrial growth, but 
it is excellent for homes. In fact, 
much of the island is more like the 
country than the city. The follow¬ 
ing description of the population 
of the borough will give a good 
idea of conditions there. “Com¬ 
pared with the rest of the bor¬ 
ough, the north and east shores of 
Staten Island are fairly well de- 








24 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


veloped, the following communi¬ 
ties practically adjoining one an¬ 
other: Rosebank, Clifton, Staple- 
ton, Tompkinsville, St. George, 
New Brighton, Sailors Snug Har¬ 
bor, Livingston, West New Brigh¬ 
ton, Port Richmond, Tower Hill, 
Elm Park, Mariners Harbor, and 



Brown Bros. 

One of the narrow streets of Chinatown in 
New York City. 


Arlington. All of these lie within 
a two-mile belt across the northern 
and eastern sections of the island. 
South of the two-mile belt, the 
island consists to a large extent of 
open country, farm lands, wooded 
areas, residential estates, and the 
like, along with a number of small 
hamlets. Along the west shore 
the only towns are Linoleumville, 


Fresh Kills, Green Ridge, Ross- 
ville, and Charlestown. At the 
southern tip of the island is Tot- 
tenville, with a population of sev¬ 
eral thousand, the largest town in 
the lower part of the borough of 
Richmond. ’ ’ 

The People of New York.—Only a 
few of the many things that might 
be told about New York have been 
given in this brief account. Much 
could be written about the many 
nationalities represented in the 
city. Many of these gather by 
themselves in certain sections of 
the city. There are parts of the 
city which are exclusively Jewish; 
others that are Italian. The Greek 
colony is a growing one. There is 
a Chinese quarter downtown, a 
large Negro section uptown, and 
a small but distinct Syrian group 
on the West Side. There are 
other neighborhoods which are 
characteristically German, others 
French, others Roumanian, others 
Russian. Practically every Eu¬ 
ropean language is spoken some¬ 
where every day in some part of 
this great city. There are many 
newspapers printed in foreign 
languages which have a large 
daily circulation. But the chil¬ 
dren of these people all attend pub¬ 
lic schools where they hear but one 



THE BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK 


25 



Brown Bros. 


The statue in memory of Nathan Hale in 
City Hall Park, New York City. 

language, and that the language of 
America. And those sons and 
daughters of foreign parents 
bring back from the school into 
their homes the ideals of Ameri- 
• canism and thus help their fathers 
and mothers and older relatives to 
become good and loyal citizens of 
this beautiful country which is do¬ 
ing so many good and wonderful 
things for them. 

Historic Places.—It would take 
several days to pay a visit to all 
of the places of historic interest in 


the city. Many of the stirring 
events before and during the War 
of Independence took place here. 
The Battle of Long Island and 
Harlem Heights took place within 
the present limits of the city. In 
City Hall Park there is a statue of 
Nathan Hale which every boy and 
girl should see and regard as 
an inspiring lesson in patriot¬ 
ism. Washington was inaugurated 
President in New York and lived 
there during the first year of his 
administration. 

Many men and women promi¬ 
nent in the affairs of our country 
have lived in New York. (See Ap¬ 
pendix for Points of Interest in 
New York.) 

Robert Fulton set out from this 
city on his trial trip that proved 
that the steamboat was a practical 
means of traveling. 

Fifth Avenue and Broadway are 
famous among the great streets of 
the world. Some of the most 
wonderful stores in the world are 
on Fifth and Sixth avenues and 
other near-by streets. Some 
streets are lined with pushcarts 
where the shopper may supply his 
wants in a very simple way. 
Great bridges have been built over 
the East River. The buildings in 
the city range in size from the 






26 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 

largest in the world to tiny struc- described in detad in any one 
tures. A city so great cannot be book. 

Questions 

is the only one of the boroughs “attached 
to the mainland.” 

VI. Why do you think there are more 
parks in The Bronx than in Manhattan ? 

VII. Why is New York spoken of as the 
“doorway of the nation”? 

VIII. Why do people of the same na¬ 
tionality gather in colonies by themselves? 


I. Why should you know your city? 

II. We often speak of Manhattan Island. 
Do you think of it as an island? Why? 

III. Why has Brooklyn become a city 
of homes? 

IV. What is the difference between a 
boulevard and a street? 

V. Explain how it is true that The Bronx 


CHAPTER IV 

The Metropolitan Area in New Jersey 


West of the Hudson River—The 

map on page 38 shows the ex¬ 
tent of the territory so affected by 
the city of New York that it is in¬ 
cluded in the metropolitan district. 
Much of this section is open coun¬ 
try. There are many truck and 
dairy farms that help supply the 
markets of the New Jersey cities 
and New York. Many small towns 
that are fine home towns have 
sprung up. The man who likes the 
country finds the ideal home in 
these suburban places, where there 
is space for a lawn and garden. 
Perhaps the reason there are not 
more such homes is that many 
have not tried the plan of owning 
their own home. 


Being so close to New York and 
having so much in common with 
that city, it would seem that many 
of the port cities in New Jersey 
should be a part of that city. They 
would be, no doubt, if it were not 
that they are under a different 
state government and cannot unite 
with New York as a city. 

Newark, the First City in New Jer¬ 
sey.—The first city in size and im¬ 
portance in New Jersey is New¬ 
ark. 

In May, 1666, a small band of 
colonists from Milford, Connecti¬ 
cut, under the leadership of Cap¬ 
tain Robert Treat and Reverend 
Abraham Pierson, sailed up the 
(Pesayak) Passaic River and set 


METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


27 



foot on a tract of land which had 
been set aside for settlers. The 
settlement was named Milford, but 
afterward the name was changed 
to Newark in honor of Reverend 
Pierson who had received his min¬ 
isterial training at Newark, Eng¬ 
land. 

Newark is eight miles from New 
York City, on the west shore of 
Newark Bay. It extends for six 
miles along a high ridge which 
rises a little west of the Passaic 
River and Newark Bay. It is, in¬ 
deed, “a city set on a hill.” 


The first public building erect¬ 
ed was a little church. From 
the cupola of this church men 
watched during services for In¬ 
dians who might attack the settle¬ 
ment. 

The village was prosperous 
from the outset. By the end of 
ten years a sturdy little boat made 
regular trips between Newark and 
New York and Elizabethtown, car¬ 
rying produce back and forth. The 
population did not increase rap¬ 
idly, however. Over one hundred 
years lapsed before there wer^ 


Photo by Fairchild’s Aerial Corporation. 

An aerial view of Lower Manhattan showing location of the suburban areas. 






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28 





METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


29 



Courtesy Chamber of Commerce, Newark, N. J. 

Market Street, Newark, N. J. 


more than one thousand inhabit¬ 
ants in the town. 

Newark, an Industrial Center.— 
From early times Newark has 
been an industrial center. The 
Morris Canal, completed in 1836, 
connected the city with the coal 
regions in Pennsylvania, so neces¬ 
sary fuel to run its machinery was 
provided. As railroads were built, 
Newark found itself on many of 
the principal routes that had their 
terminal on New York Bay. This 
gave it access to the markets of 
the nation. 

Seth Boyden was an important 
character in the town’s welfare. 
He was an inventor and a manu¬ 


facturer. He produced the first 
patent leather ; he also carried on 
several successful experiments in 
the production of fruit. 

By 1840 the population had 
reached seventeen thousand. 
There was a system of public 
schools which was established in 
1836. The streets were lighted 
with oil lamps which were re¬ 
placed by gas lamps in 1846. 

At the present time 223 differ¬ 
ent lines of industry are found in 
Newark. This city is the home of 
the button industry, and is also the 
nation’s finest jewelry center. 
More than one hundred plants 
are engaged in making boots 
and shoes, harnesses, automobile 
leather, and other leather goods. 
Other chief industries are the re¬ 
fining of copper, the manufacture 
of iron, steel, and brass products, 
electric machinery and apparatus, 
and shipbuilding. With so many 
industries and with such a large 
amount of manufactured goods, 
Newark has often been called 
“The Workshop of the Nation.” 

As a shopping center Newark is 
next to New York in the metropol¬ 
itan district. Its fine department 
stores are much better than those 
usually found in a city so close to 
a very large city. Some of the 



30 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


great insurance companies have 
their headquarters in Newark. 

Port Newark.—Its location on 
Newark Bay and the Passaic River 
give it excellent means of ship¬ 
ping. There are eleven miles of 
waterfront on the river and bay. 
Many docks have already been 




Brown Bros. 


The Court House at Newark, N. J. The 
Borglum Lincoln in the foreground. 

built and extensive plans are 
under way for making Port New¬ 
ark one of the greatest shipping 
ports in the world. 

New York is easily reached 
from Newark by railroad, trolley, 
automobile, or by the Hudson Tun¬ 
nels that connect with both the 
downtown and uptown sections 
of New^ York City. Trolley lines 


connect Newark with all neighbor¬ 
ing cities and towns in New Jer¬ 
sey. In Newark, as in other cities, 
the automobile busses are carry¬ 
ing many of the passengers that 
the trolleys carried a few years 
ago. 

Newark has several beautiful 
parks. Branch Brook and Wee- 
quahic parks are the two largest. 

Education.—A complete educa¬ 
tional system is to be found in the 
city. There is also an excellent 
public library. The public school 
system of Newark has been used 
as a model by many cities through¬ 
out the United States. One of the 
state normal schools is located 
there. 

For the protection of the public 
welfare a great deal of money is 
spent each year maintaining a 
complete tire and police force. 
Public health receives a good deal 
of attention. The city water sup¬ 
ply is the best that can be ob¬ 
tained. It comes from the Pe- 
quannock Watershed. A new res¬ 
ervoir is being constructed at 
Wanaque in Passaic County. 

Suburbs of Newark. — Several 
small towns and cities lie round 
about Newark. Just north of the 
city across the Passaic River is 
the town of Harrison, the city 






METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


31 



A scene in a park in Montclair, N. J. 


of Kearney, and the village of 
East Newark. Important manu¬ 
facturing plants in Harrison are 
foundries, machine shops, steel 
works, and electrical shops. In 
Kearney yarn, twine, and linoleum 
are made. Large thread mills are 
located in East Newark. South 
and west of Newark is Irving¬ 
ton. 

West of the Passaic River and 
west and north of Newark are a 
number of beautiful residential 
towns and cities. Among these 
are Montclair, Bloomfield, Glen 
Ridge, East Orange, South Or¬ 
ange, and West Orange. Caldwell, 
a few miles west of Montclair, is 
the birthplace of Grover Cleve¬ 
land. Summit lies south of Cald¬ 
well. 


Some manufacturing is done in 
these towns and cities, but not 
much. They are the home towns 
of thousands of people who spend 
their days working in New York 
or the near-by New Jersey cities. 

Montclair is the home of many 
of the most prosperous of New 
York business men. It has many 
homes surrounded by beautiful 
grounds. Many country clubs are 
supported by the families in Mont¬ 
clair. 

The Montclair State Normal 
School is located in Upper Mont¬ 
clair. 

The one town in this group that 
does considerable manufacturing 
is West Orange. The great Edi¬ 
son industries are located here as 
well as several other manufactur¬ 
ing plants. 

Belleville is just north of the 
city. Nutley borders on the north 
side of Belleville. 

The Sail and Harbor City.—Touch¬ 
ing Newark on the south is the 
city of Elizabeth. This city was 
first settled in 1664 by a company 
from Long Island, being then 
known as Elizabethtown. It be¬ 
came a chartered city in 1855. Be¬ 
cause of its excellent location for 
shipping, it is sometimes called 
“The Sail and Harbor City.” 



32 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


There are many fine residences in 
the city. It is also an industrial 
center of considerable importance. 
Within the last few years large au¬ 
tomobile manufacturing plants 
have come to Elizabeth. Tools, 
electric supplies, cars, trucks, and 
heating apparatus are produced 
there. 

Elizabethport is the name given 
to the eastern part of the city near 
Staten Island Sound. The largest 
sewing machine works in the world 
are located there. 

Cities Near the River and Bay.— 
On the peninsula bounded by the 
Hackensack River and Newark 
Bay on the west, the Hudson River 
and New York Bay on the east, 
and the Kill von Kull on the 
southeast, are several large cities. 
These cities are excellently lo¬ 
cated. The waterfront is conven¬ 
ient for ocean shipping, and large 
railroad trunk lines pass through 
them or terminate within their 
borders. They lie nearer the heart 
of the New York City business dis¬ 
trict than many parts of that city 
itself. 

The Early History of Jersey City. 

—Jersey City is the largest of the 
group of cities on this peninsula. 
It ranks next to Newark in New 
Jersey in size and as an industrial 


city. This city contains the sites 
of the earliest settlements in New 
Jersey. The city of to-day was 
formed by the consolidation of 
Bergen, Hudson City, and Green¬ 
ville along with the original Jer¬ 
sey City. This union of towns oc¬ 
curred in the years 1869-1873. 
Among the sites of early settle¬ 
ments in New Jersey included 
within the present boundaries the 
most notable is that of Bergen, 
which was founded in 1660, soon 
after Peter Stuyvesant, the Dutch 
Governor of New Amsterdam, 
purchased the land between the 
Hudson River on the east and the 
Hackensack River and Newark 
Bay on the west. The founders of 
Bergen were interested in educa¬ 
tion, and they accordingly reserved 
a site for a school when they laid 
out the plan of the village. This 
is the first site in the state of New 
Jersey used for school purposes. 
The present beautiful School 
Number 11 is on the same plot. 

At first Jersey City only in¬ 
cluded Paulus Hook. As early as 
1764 a ferry connected Paulus 
Hook with New York. This town 
was the starting place of the stage 
line to Philadelphia. 

The Jersey City of To-day.—To¬ 
day Jersey City is the terminal 



-rrnrci 




f$OM NEW YORK 


aiw® ii * 5CT # *1 


IIJDSON & MANHATTAN K- R. 


A diagram of the tubes that go under the Hudson River. 

33 













































34 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


site of four railroad lines. The 
city has grown until it has a popu¬ 
lation of 305,911 (estimated 1924). 
The waterfront has been improved 
and there is dock space for hun¬ 
dreds of vessels. Some of the 
most important transatlantic lin¬ 
ers dock at Jersey City. Numer¬ 
ous ferries connect it with New 
York, and several tunnels have 
been constructed under the Hud¬ 
son River. The vehicular tun¬ 
nel, described on page 113, will 
mean much to Jersey City and the 
other New Jersey cities in the met¬ 
ropolitan district. Trolley lines 
connect the city with all near-by 
points in New Jersey. 

This city was first connected 
with the coal fields of Pennsyl¬ 
vania by the Morris Canal. The 
Delaware and Raritan Canal in¬ 
creased its importance by giving 
it an inland waterway to Philadel¬ 
phia. Its location on New York 
Bay, where all the railroads must 
come to reach the markets of New 
York, insures its prosperity. 

As an industrial city it is de¬ 
veloping very rapidly. Many 
large grain elevators are to be 
found there. There are several 
slaughter houses in the city where 
the livestock consigned to New 
York and other markets is 


slaughtered. Of the by-products 
from the slaughter houses, soap, 
candles, chemicals, and fertilizer 
are manufactured. Much sugar is 
refined in the city. There is also 
a large production of tobacco 
products, foundry and machine 
products, and lead pencils. 

The city is located on a ridge 
running north and south. The 
high ground furnishes many ex¬ 
cellent home sites with fine views 
of the Hudson River. Health and 
education receive a great deal of 
attention. Being on a ridge, the 
sewage is easily drained east or 
west. The schools are of the best 
types and are housed in some of 
the finest school buildings in the 
United States. 

Industrial Bayonne. — South of 

Jersey City lies Bayonne. This 
city has the best of locations for 
an industrial city. It is near the 
New York markets, easily acces¬ 
sible from the many markets of the 
United States, and has excellent 
facilities for building docks for 
ocean shipping. The most impor¬ 
tant industry of the city is the re¬ 
fining of petroleum, brought to its 
refineries by pipe lines from the 
oil fields in Pennsylvania and else¬ 
where. Tank cars and steamers 
bring oil from sources not reached 


35 


METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


by pipes. Ore is refined in the city. 
There are also silk mills, foun¬ 
dries, and machine shops. 

The Growth of Hoboken. —Direct¬ 
ly north and bordering on Jersey 
City is the city of Hoboken. John 
Stevens bought the site of Ho¬ 
boken in 1804. He judged that the 
rapidly growing city of New York 
would soon overflow to the west 
shore of the Hudson River. He 
was not mistaken. At first the 
growth of the town was slow, how¬ 
ever. By 1855 the town was im¬ 
portant enough to receive a char¬ 
ter as a city. It has grown rapidly 
and is now an important indus¬ 
trial center. It is connected with 
New York by ferry and by the 
tube under the Hudson. Some of 
the great steamship lines of the 
world have dock space in Hoboken. 
Many of its people are employed 
in the foundry and machine shops, 
in shipbuilding and repairing, and 
in the making of nautical and sur¬ 
veying instruments. Silk goods, 
lead pencils, and moving picture 
apparatus are also manufactured 
there. 

Edwin A. Stevens, through his 
will, richly endowed the Stevens 
Institute of Technology in Hobo¬ 
ken. It is one of the best schools 
of its kind in the United States. 



Brown Bros. 


The duel between Alexander Hamilton and 
Aaron Burr. 

Other Cities and Towns Near Jersey 
City. —West Hoboken occupies a 
beautiful site on the Palisade 
ridge. Like others of the smaller 
cities in the metropolitan group, it 
would be regarded as a good-sized 
city if it were by itself away from 
other cities. It has a population 
of over forty thousand. A good 
deal of manufacturing is carried 
on within its borders. Its leading 
industries are silk manufacturing 
and dyeing, and the making of em¬ 
broidery products. 

North and west of West Hobo¬ 
ken on the ridge along the Hudson 
River are Union, West New York, 
North Bergen, and Guttenberg. 



3G 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Farther west are the villages of 
Secaucus, Carlstadt, and Little 
Ferry. Weehawken, famous in 
history as the dueling ground of 
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron 
Burr, lies next to Hoboken on the 
north. 

With such excellent means of 
reaching New York as are avail¬ 
able in this section, there have 
grown up along the Palisades for 
several miles many beautiful 
residential towns. One of the most 
attractive of these is Englewood. 
Others are Leonia, Ridgefield 
Park, Bogota, Fort Lee, Cliffside, 
Fairview, and Edgewater. 

The “City of Mills.” —The third 
city in size in New Jersey lies 
north and west of Jersey City, 
about fourteen miles from the 
Hudson River. This is the city of 
Paterson. 

This city does not enjoy the ad¬ 
vantage of being on the waterfront 
of the ocean as Newark, Jersey 
City, Bayonne, and Hoboken. Be¬ 
ing so near New York, however, 
it is within easy reach of the mar¬ 
kets there. The Delaware, Lacka¬ 
wanna and Western, the Erie, and 
the New York, Susquehanna, and 
Western railroads pass through 
the city. Many automobile trucks 
are also used in carrying freight 



Courtesy Chamber of Commerce, Paterson, N. J. 


Passaic Falls. These Falls are within one 
half mile from the center of the city re¬ 
ferred to on this and on the opposite 
page. They still furnish much power for 
the city’s industries. 

to and from Paterson. Trolleys 
connect it with many points on the 
Hudson River as well as other 
near-by cities and towns. 

The site of Paterson was se¬ 
lected by Alexander Hamilton in 
1792 as the location for his “City 
of Mills. ’ 9 The Falls of the Pas¬ 
saic River at this place led him to 
select this site because of the 
cheap power to be had. Governor 
William Paterson signed the char¬ 
ter of the city, and that led to the 
selection of the name that the city 
has at the present time. This 
city is the county seat of Passaic 
County. 

With water power and the Mor- 





METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


37 


ris Canal at first and railroads 
later connecting it with the coal 
fields, Paterson became a great 
commercial city. Viewed from 
any high point, it impresses one as 
“the City of Mills.” 

The “Silk City.”—No city in the 
United States excels Paterson in 
the manufacture of silk. There 
are also large factories that make 
men’s shirts. Besides there are 
many foundries and machine 
shops. 

The school system of Paterson 
is made up of all types of schools 
to meet the needs of all its people. 
The Paterson State Normal School 
is also located in the city. 

Towns Near Paterson.—Paterson 
is surrounded by small towns and 
cities. Hawthorne and Ridgewood 
are to the northeast. Ridgewood 
is one of the most beautiful home 
towns in this section. Ramsey is 
near Ridgewood. Pompton and 
Midvale are on one of the main 
highways about nine miles north 
and west of Paterson in the foot¬ 
hills of the Watchung Mountains. 
Little Falls is about four miles 
west of the city. A large carpet 
manufacturing plant is located 
there. 

On the way between Paterson 
and Newark is Clifton, a rapidly 


growing city mostly given over to 
homes. Passaic bounds Clifton on 
the east. This city produces a 
great quantity of woolens, cotton 
goods, and other textiles. Nutley 
is near Passaic, as is Garfield, 
Wallington, Lodi, Rutherford, 
East Rutherford, and Hasbrouck 
Heights. 

On the New York, Susquehanna, 
and Western Railroad, about five 
miles from Paterson toward New 
York, is Hackensack, the county 
seat of Bergen County. North of 
it are the villages of River Edge, 
West Englewood, Oradell, Bergen- 
field, Dumont, Park Ridge, Clos- 
ter, and Westwood. 

New York’s Neighbors.—Besides 
all these cities and small communi¬ 
ties are many others that are really 
included in the larger metro¬ 
politan district. Ease of trans¬ 
portation has made cities which 
were at one time far away in time 
and distance from New York near 
neighbors of that city. Men com¬ 
mute daily between Philadelphia 
and New York. A trip of days has 
been shortened to two hours. Fast 
trains, trolleys, and busses are 
helping each day to widen the 
boundaries of the area related 
closely to New York and its in¬ 
terests. 



38 


Courtesy of the Russell Sage Foundation. 





































39 


METROPOLITAN AREA IN NEW JERSEY 


Most important among such 
places are Perth Amboy and the 
towns along the shore as far south 
as Point Pleasant, New Bruns¬ 
wick, the county seat of Middlesex 
County, Rahway, Plainfield, Madi¬ 
son, and Morristown. Nyack is a 
town a few miles north of New 
York City on the Hudson River. 
Other cities along the Hudson are 
Haverstraw, West Point, and 
Newburgh. 



1 A complete list of all towns and cities 
on pages 151-154. 


West Point is the site of the 
United States Military Academy. 
Newburgh is rich in historic 



Brown Bros. 

Bear Mountain Inn. 


scenes. Washington’s headquar¬ 
ters there is one of the best 
museums of historic relics. 1 

The Playground of Metropolitan 
New York.—On the west side of the 
Hudson River extending from 
Fort Lee, New Jersey, almost to 
Newburgh is the Palisade Inter¬ 
state Park. The New Jersey sec¬ 
tion of this park is a narrow strip 
of land along the Palisades 1,060 
acres in extent. In New York 
State the park space includes 
36,407 acres. 

Most important of this area is 

in the metropolitan districts may he found 








40 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Bear Mountain Park. This park 
is rapidly becoming the recreation 
ground for thousands of pleasure 
seekers. In the summer, boy and 
girl scouts, the Y.M.C.A., the 
Y.W.C.A., and many other socie¬ 
ties, business firms, and private 
families find camping space avail¬ 
able for their use. There is oppor¬ 
tunity for fishing, boating, canoe¬ 
ing, and swimming, besides the 
hundreds of trails loved by hikers. 
In the winter the sport lover may 
enjoy skiing, skating, tobogganing, 
and snowshoeing. 

On Thanksgiving Day, 1924, the 
bridge across the Hudson River 
from Anthony’s Nose to Bear 
Mountain was opened. This 
bridge opens the way for auto¬ 


mobiles to reach the park without 
the inconvenience of ferrying. 
With much of the trouble removed 
from the trip, it is predicted that 
Bear Mountain visitors will rap¬ 
idly increase in numbers. In 1924 
about three million people visited 
the park. 

Mention is made elsewhere in 
this book of other proposed Hud¬ 
son River bridges, particularly at 
or near One Hundred Seventy- 
eighth Street, New York, and Fort 
Lee, New Jersey. When this 
bridge is completed, the Interstate 
Park will be so easily accessible 
that with an hour or so of travel 
the city family may establish a 
camp site in the mountains. 


Questions 


I. Why might it be well to include some 
of the near-by New Jersey cities within 
New York City? 

II. What are some of the advantages of 
Newark’s location? 

III. Why would you expect to find fine 
residential towns in New Jersey? 


IV. Bayonne has an ideal location for 
oil refineries. Explain. 

V. Jersey City is the site of a great soap 
manufacturing plant. Why ? 

VI. Why is Paterson a “City of Mills”? 

VII. What is the advantage of having 
a wildwood near the city? 


METROPOLITAN DISTRICT IN NEW YORK STATE 41 


CHAPTER V 

The Metropolitan District in New York State 


Cities and Towns North of New 
York City.—East of the Hudson 
River and bounding New York on 
the north is the city of Yonkers. 
This city is the sixth city in size 
in the state of New York. It 
is the largest city outside of 
New York City itself east of the 
Hudson in the metropolitan dis¬ 
trict. It is within the limits of the 
Port Authority area, and its future 
will, no doubt, be affected by the 
plans of that Commission. 



Brown Bros. 


Getty Square in Yonkers. 

Yonkers has its own water sys¬ 
tem, an excellent tire and police 
department, and a complete system 



Brown Bros. 


Philipse Manor, Yonkers, a building rich in 
historic scenes. 

. of schools. It ranks fifth in value 
of manufactured goods among the 
cities of the state. Large carpet, 
hat, and sugar factories are lo¬ 
cated there. 

Three main line railways trav¬ 
erse Yonkers. Many trolley lines 
and bus routes furnish easy means 
of travel to New York City and 
surrounding towns. Being so near 
New York City, this city has fine 
prospects as a manufacturing cen¬ 
ter, also as a place of residence. 

North of Yonkers are many 
beautiful residential towns and 
villages. Among these are Hast¬ 
ings, Irvington, Larchmont, Ma- 








42 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



A railroad yard on Long Island. 


maroneck, Dobbs Ferry, Tarry- 
town, North Tarry town, and many 
others, not large in population but 
important because of the many 
fme homes and estates within their 
borders. Broadway continues far 
up the river side, and along its 
course are Ossining, Peekskill, 
Fishkill, and Poughkeepsie. 

Next in size to Yonkers in the 
section just north of New York 
City is Mount Vernon. This city 
is the home of many families who 
w r ork in New York. There are 
some important manufacturing 
plants there also. New Rochelle 
and Pelham Manor are east of 
Mount Vernon. They are largely 
residential centers. Westchester 
County is covered with beautiful 


towns and estates. A complete 
list of the towns is found in the 
Appendix, page 152. 

This section is also the play¬ 
ground of many New York busi¬ 
ness people. The rolling hills are 
the sites of many public and pri¬ 
vate golf grounds. It is, indeed, 
fortunate to have such beautiful 
country available for homes and 
play places so near a large city. 

Long Island Suburbs.—In Nassau 
County on Long Island, the city 
has extended itself (if not by 
boundary) by the interest of its 



Brown Bros. 

The grave of Theodore Roosevelt. 


people in home sites away from 
the busy city streets. In some of 
the Long Island suburbs are to be 
found many beautiful estates. 









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KEY TO CLUBS 

1 Apawamis Club 

2 A*-dsieu C C 

3 Bai'ey Pb 'k c C 

4 Bedford Golf a T C 
3 0ilimor« BeacH CNb 
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7 Bonnie Briar OuO 

8 Oriercliff C C 

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11 Fairnew C C 
I 3 Fennimore c C 
14 Ged*ey EamisCC 
13 Gra^fty SpromC C 
IG Green M««dowCC 

1 7 C'««nwieh C C 
10 Hollo*/ Broo^C C 

19 Hubbard Mt, c C 

20 HudeoK Ri*«r CC 

2 • Knoll wood C C 

22 Lawrence Park C C 

23 Mt H.ico G C 

24 l4i Vernon C Q 
23 N»nn*ha«en G C 
2G Ne •» York A C 

27 Oak A'dge GC 

28 0. P.dge MC 

29 Pelham C C 

30 PeiHamhurot C C 

31 Portcbeater C C 

32 Oueher Ridge C C 

33 Ridgef'«id C C 

34 RocW land C C 

35 Rye C C 
3t 5* Andrew, GC 

37 Scarsdsie G C 

38 Siwanou C C 

39 S'eepy Hoi low CC 

40 Sound BeecH 6AC C 

41 Sunmngda'e C C 

42 WeccuOuc C C 
4J Wee Burn G C 

44 WesfcHorter ©ilfmore 

43 WesteK«*»er Mills C C 

48 Wmged Foot G C 
47 Woodway C C 
4# WyLagyl C C 

49 6r.«rciiff Lodge G Course 


NEW YORK AND ENVIRONS 

Map showing 

PUBLIC PARK SPACES 

in comparison wiTh 

PRIVATELY OWNED AREAS OCCUPlEO BY 

GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUBS 


WESTCHESTER AND ADJOINING COUNTIES 

SCALE 

t 92 2 


LEGEND 


HAN OF New YORK AND TO ENVIRONS 

eoMiCAi sunvt'' 'JO i«t 


eouNDAfoev 

STATE 

COUNTY 

TOWNSHIP 

VILLAGE 


AREAS IN PUBLIC PARKS 
AREAS OWNEO BY CLUBS 
AREAS- LEASED BY CLUBS 
CLUB DATA INCOMPLETE 
RESERVOIRS ( mu«iic‘»»i.) 


023 (O/er Acre* ) 


Courtesy Russell Sage Foundation . 


Play places north of New York City on the east side of the Hudson River. 

43 































44 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Oyster Bay, notable because it 
was the home of Theodore Roose¬ 
velt, is a place of tine homes. 
Many admirers of the great Amer¬ 
ican have traveled to Oyster Bay 
to visit his burial place which is 
marked by only a simple stone. 
Really great men do not need great 
stone monuments to remind us 
that they have lived among us. 

Mineola is the site of an aerial 
field. Garden City is a publishing 
center. Many of the larger towns 
have some manufacturing plants. 
Many are near enough the water¬ 
front to be good places for sum¬ 
mer resorts. 

New Yorkers in Connecticut.—Al¬ 
though Connecticut is outside of 
any boundaries given for the met¬ 
ropolitan district, a part of Fair- 
field County has been chosen by 
many New Yorkers as a good place 
in which to build homes. Many 
business men commute regularly 
from some of the cities in Connec¬ 
ticut. 


Some of the best highways lead 
directly from New York into Con¬ 
necticut, and automobiles are con¬ 
tinually shortening the distance 
between the city and many good 
home sites in that state. 

New York and Its Suburbs Closely 
Related.—Travel around New York 
City through the many towns that 
help to make up the metropolitan 
district, and you will find a host of 
people who divide their interests 
between the New Jersey and the 
New York State towns, villages, 
and cities and New York City. On 
another page you will find an ac¬ 
count of the number of commuters. 
Business men in Paterson, New¬ 
ark, Passaic, Yonkers, and other 
cities have offices in New York. 
We could not have the central city 
without the many communities 
outside the city, nor would there 
be reasons for the many smaller 
towns and cities that we have writ¬ 
ten about if it were not for the 
large city as a center of interest. 


Questions 


I. What is meant by the Metropolitan 
district ? 

II. What is meant by the “Port Author¬ 
ity”? 

III. Give three reasons why Yonkers is 
spoken of as well located. 

IV. Why do not great men need great 
stone monuments? 


V. What is an aerial field? 

VI. Why is Garden City a publishing 
center ? 

VII. Do you know any one residing in 
the places discussed in the last two chap¬ 
ters? If you were to visit them, tell how 
you would go there. 


THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 


45 


CHAPTER VI 

The Life of the People 


New York Bay Attracts a Great 
Population.—Thus far we have dis¬ 
cussed some of the history, geog¬ 
raphy, and general facts about the 
land, waters, industries, and com¬ 
merce of the various sections that 
make up the metropolitan district. 
All these facts are of value to us 
in thinking about the area. The 
reasons why people have gathered 
in such numbers around New York 
Bay and how they have improved 
the country found there should be 
known in order to go farther into 
the study of other questions that 
arise after the people have ar¬ 
rived. 

The Simple Life.—When only a 
few families make up a com¬ 
munity, life is very simple. Every 
one manages his own household. 
It may be that one neighbor bor¬ 
rows food or tools from another at 
times; or when there is much work 
to do, all the men in the group 
unite in doing it. This is the plan 
that was actually followed in early 
days. 

There was a time when New 
York was a village. There were, 
in fact, various little groups scat- 



Brown Bros. 


A crowd at Times Square. 

tered over Manhattan Island and 
the area making up the city and 
its suburbs. This condition con¬ 
tinued for a long time. Nearly a 
hundred years after the Duke of 
York took the city from the Dutch, 
a traveler gives the following ac¬ 
count of New York: 

When New York Was a Garden.— 

“The streets do not run straight, 
as those of Philadelphia, and have 
considerable bendings; however, 
they are very spacious and well 
built, and most of them are paved, 
except in high places where it has 



46 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


been found useless. In the chief 
streets there are trees planted, 
which in the summer give them a 
fine appearance, and during the 
excessive heat at that time form a 
cooling shade. I found it ex¬ 
tremely pleasant to walk in the 
town, for it seemed quite like a 
garden. 

“Most of the houses are built of 
brick, and are generally strong 
and neat, and several stories high. 
Some had, according to old archi¬ 
tecture, turned the gable end 
toward the street, but the houses 
were altered in this respect. Many 
of the houses had a balcony on the 
roof on which the people used to 
sit in the evenings in the summer 
seasons; and from thence they had 
a pleasant view of a great part of 
the town, and likewise of part of 
the adjacent waters and the op¬ 
posite shore. The roofs are 
commonly covered with tiles or 
shingles. The walls are white¬ 
washed within, and I did not any¬ 
where see hangings, with which the 
people in this country seem to be 
but little acquainted. The walls 
were quite covered with all sorts 
of drawings and pictures in small 
frames. On each side of the chim¬ 
neys they had usually a sort of 
alcove; and the wall under the win- 



Brown Bros. 


The best way to travel in the early days. 

dows was wainscoted and had 
benches placed near it. The al¬ 
coves and all the woodwork were 
painted with a bluish gray color. 

“There are several churches in 
the town which deserve some at¬ 
tention. 1. The English Church, 
built in the year 1695, at the west 
end of (the) town, consisting of 
stone, and has a steeple with a bell. 
2. The new Dutch Church, which 
is likewise built of stone, is pretty 
large and is provided with a 
steeple; it also has a clock, which 
is the only one in town. 

“Toward the sea, on the ex¬ 
tremity of the promontory, is a 
pretty good fortress, called Fort 
George, which entirely commands 






THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE 


47 


the port and can defend the town, 
at least from a sudden attack on 
the sea side. Besides that, it is 
likewise secured on the north or 
toward the shore by a palisade, 
which, however (as for a consider¬ 
able time the people have had 
nothing to fear from an enemy), 
is in many places in a very bad 
state of defense. 

6 1 There is no good water to be 
met with in the town itself, but at 
a little distance there is a large 
spring of good water, which the 
inhabitants take for their tea and 
for the uses of the kitchen. Those, 
however, who are less delicate in 
this point, make use of the water 
in the wells in town, though it be 
very bad. This want of good 
water lies heavy upon the horses 
of the strangers that come to this 
place; for they do not like to drink 
the water from the wells in the 
town.” 1 

The Sportsman’s Paradise.—New 

York of those days was little more 
than a good-sized town. The sur¬ 
rounding country, now occupied by 
a population of nearly ten millions, 
was in large part a wilderness. 
A writer of a few years earlier 
than the one who gave the above ac¬ 
count describes the country around 

1 From Travels in North America, by 


Manhattan as a sportsman’s para¬ 
dise. He said, “For wild beast 
there is Deer, Bear, Wolves, 
Foxes, Raccoons, Otters, Mus¬ 
quashes, and Skunks. Wild Fowl 
there is a great store of, as Tur¬ 
keys, Heath-hens, Quails, Par¬ 
tridges, Pigeons, Cranes, Geese of 
several sorts, Brants, Widgeons, 
Teal, and divers others.” 

Upon the south shore of Long 
Island there were ‘ ‘ store of 
Whales and Grampusses.” East- 
chester was noted for its vast 
number of wild ducks. Deer and 
bear as well as other small game 
were plentiful. Wolves and rat¬ 
tlesnakes were too plentiful. A 
bounty of thirty shillings was paid 
for wolf scalps. Mount Morris, in 
Harlem, was called by the Dutch 
Slang-Berg or Snake Hill. A 
stream in the section known as 
Edenwald, where these reptiles 
were found in great number, still 
bears the name of Rattlesnake 
Brook. 

Village Life.—Life in this period 
was much as it is in small villages 
to-day. There, was no call for a 
great system of cleaning streets. 
There were no sewers to dig. The 
telephone, telegraph, radio, steam 
railway, subway, trolley car, and 
Peter Kalin, 1748. 


48 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


The City Hall of New York City in 1840. 

automobile were not yet thought 
of. The need of them had not been 
felt. It is so with many things 
that go to make up the life of the 
city to-day. 

The Early Schoolmaster.—An ex¬ 
ample of how far we have pro¬ 
gressed from those days is sug¬ 
gested by the change in our schools 
beyond the school of early days. 
All of us know of the great plants 
that house our schools now, also 
of the work the teacher does in 
those schools. In 1661 a notice 
from the Court of Breuckelen 
(Brooklyn) “ respectfully ” re¬ 
quired the services of a 4 i Court 
messenger, to be occasionally em¬ 
ployed in the village of Breuckelen 


and all around where he may be 
needed, as well to serve summons, 
as also to conduct the services of 
the Church, and to sing on Sun¬ 
days, to take charge of the School, 
dig graves, etc., ring the Bell, and 
to perform whatever else might be 
needed.” 

The change along other lines 
since the days of this notice are 
just as great as in the schools. 

Some of the matters that con¬ 
cern all who dwell in large centers 
of population are discussed in the 
succeeding chapters. The prob¬ 
lems to be found in New York City 
are given most attention because 
there the problems are the great¬ 
est. Many things said of New 
York are true of the smaller cities 
in the metropolitan district except 
that they appear on a smaller 
scale. Every city and town in the 
area takes pride in keeping its 
streets clean, in paving its streets, 
caring for its needy, keeping its 
people healthy, and educating its 
boys and girls. Every community 
is doing its best to make its food 
and water supply good and as 
cheap in price as possible. Police 
and fire departments range in size 
from the army of men employed in 
New York City down to one police¬ 
man and a volunteer fire brigade. 



49 


KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN 

Let us now turn to a study of with in city management in the 
some of the great problems dealt metropolitan district. 

Questions 

L Name one street in New York which III. Why was life simple in the early 
is famous for its twists and bendings. days of New York? 

II. What is the name of the “adjacent IV. How does a village differ from a 
waters” on the east? On the west? On city? 
the south? On the north of Manhattan 
Island? 


CHAPTER VII 

Keeping the City Clean 


The Conflict with Dirt.—There is 
an endless conflict between the 
good housewife and the dirt, rub¬ 
bish, and other waste that accu¬ 
mulates in her home. She cannot 
have a “Clean-up Week” and then 
sit down and enjoy herself. Every 
day must be a “cleaning” day. 
Armed with mop, scrub brush, 
broom, and dust cloth, Mrs. Smith, 
Mrs. Jones, and all the good house¬ 
keepers fight the enemies “Dirt 
and Waste.” 

Dirt is an enemy if it interferes 
with our health. Left-over scraps 
from the table are enemies if they 
are thrown out where they may at¬ 
tract flies and give off a bad odor. 
There must be some plan by which 
the housekeeper and the city can 
cooperate to get rid of all this 


waste that accumulates every day. 
New York City has such a plan, 
and it operates on a large scale 
indeed. More than a million 
homes put out enough waste each 
year to make a pile, if placed in 
City Hall Park, higher than the 
Woolworth Building Tower. 

Kinds of Waste.—The waste from 
the homes, shops, and business 
places of various descriptions in 
the city may be divided into three 
parts: (1) garbage; (2) rubbish; 
and (3) ashes. Each of these must 
be disposed of in a way best suited 
to it. 

Early Street Cleaners.—One hun¬ 
dred years ago hogs were allowed 
to roam at will on the city streets 
to eat up the garbage. It was con¬ 
tended that these scavengers were 


50 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


Flushing the street. 

necessary because without them 
“the animal and vegetable matter 
thrown into streets would putrefy 
and taint the air.” It is a long 
step from such a crude and unsani¬ 
tary plan to the elaborate system 
of waste removal that we have 
to-day. 

Street Cleaning To-day. — The 

Commissioner of Street Cleaning 
appointed by the Mayor is respon¬ 
sible for removal of all waste 
within the limits of Manhattan, 
The Bronx, and Brooklyn. In the 
other two boroughs, the borough 
presidents look after the business 
of waste removal. 

Besides the removal of such 
waste as has been already men¬ 
tioned, these officers look after the 


cleaning of the streets and re¬ 
moval of the street sweepings and 
litter, also the removal of snow 
and ice from the streets in the 
winter. 

Preparing Waste for Removal.— 

In your home the waste must be 
prepared for removal by the Street 
Cleaning Department. It cannot 
be thrown out in the yard nor can 
it be placed on the sidewalk in all 
sorts of boxes, bundles, and pack¬ 
ages. Every householder must 
remember that he is but one among 
many and that he should follow 
certain rules in putting out his 
waste stuff. Garbage should be 
placed in metal cans with tight- 
fitting covers. Ash cans should 
be of metal. The garbage and 
ash cans should not be filled more 
than within four inches from the 
top. All papers and other rub¬ 
bish should be tied securely in neat 
bundles. 

Collecting Waste.—Ashes and 
garbage are collected in separate 
vehicles. The one for garbage is 
a metal cart with a capacity of one 
and one-half cubic yards. The 
rubbish cart is a wooden cart with 
a capacity of seven and one-half 
cubic yards. Many motor vehicles 
are also used to cart away garbage 
and other waste. In Manhattan, 





KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN 


51 


The Bronx, and Brooklyn, garbage 
is hauled to the waterfront, loaded 
on scows which are towed twenty 



Broum Bros. 

Removing waste. 


miles beyond Scotland Light and 
dumped at sea. Ashes from Man¬ 
hattan and The Bronx are dumped 
on Biker’s Island. From Brook¬ 
lyn the ashes are hauled to Corona 
and dumped on low lands. In 
Manhattan and The Bronx the rub¬ 
bish is scavenged by contractors, 
who pay the city for the privi¬ 
lege, and it is then taken to 
Biker ’s Island where it is burned. 
In Brooklyn a contractor takes 
the rubbish which is burned in 
furnaces. 

Disposal of Waste.— The follow¬ 
ing table shows how waste is dis¬ 
posed of throughout the city: 


GARBAGE— 

Bronx—Loaded on scows and hauled to 
sea thirty miles away, beyond Scotland 
Lightship, and dumped. 

Manhattan—Loaded on scows and hauled 
to sea thirty miles away, beyond Scot¬ 
land Lightship, and dumped. 

Brooklyn—Loaded on scows and hauled 
to sea thirty miles away, beyond Scot¬ 
land Lightship, and dumped. 

Queens—Burned in incinerators. Clinkers 
used for road building. 

Richmond—Burned in incinerators. 

Clinkers used for road building. 

ASHES— 

Bronx—Dumped on Riker’s Island. 

Manhattan—Dumped on Riker’s Island. 

Brooklyn—City pays contractor to haul 
and dump. 

Queens—Burned in incinerators. Clink¬ 
ers used for road building. 

Richmond—Burned in destructors, and 
used for road building or fills. 

RUBBISH— 

Bronx—Taken to RikeEs Island and 
burned. City paid for scavenging by 
contractor. 

Manhattan—Taken to RikeEs Island and 
burned. City paid for scavenging by 
contractor. 

Brooklyn—City pays contractor for haul¬ 
ing it. Burned in furnaces. 

Queens—Burned in incinerators. Clinkers 
used for road building. 

Richmond—Burned in incinerators. 

Clinkers used for road building. 

DEAD ANIMALS— 

Reduction plant on Barren Island. Con- 



52 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


Cleaning up a vacant lot. 

tract with a company which pays city 
for the privilege. 

The disposal of the waste pre¬ 
sents many problems. The plants 
for burning rubbish must be well 
located so as to be convenient to 
various parts of the city. This is 
not always easily done. Bad 
odors must be eliminated. The 
whole plant must be carefully 
kept. Ashes must be dumped 
somewhere, but good dumping 
grounds are not always to be 
found in or near the city. It is 
true, however, that' much of the 
land in the city where some of the 
finest buildings or great manu¬ 
facturing plants are located is 
made land, having been filled in 
with ashes and other materials. 


Made Land.—Some of the old 
maps show many ponds and 
streams on Manhattan Island. 
Not far north from where the 
City Hall now stands there was 
once a pond sixty feet deep. In 
1796 the first trial of John Fitch’s 
steamboat was held on this pond. 
The outlet of this pond was a 
canal that is now the site of Canal 
Street. Near the pond were 
stretches of meadow land that was 
fine for snipe shooting. A great 
deal of the waterfront sections 
are filled in land. At Thirty-third 
Street and Fourth Avenue, where 
a huge business building is to be 
erected, was Sunfish Pond. 

Saw Mill Creek rose between 
Forty-ninth and Fiftieth streets 
west of Sixth Avenue and flowed 
southeast to the East River at 
Forty-sixth Street. Where this 
creek crossed Fifth Avenue there 
was a pond. On this spot a large 
banking and office building now 
stands. 

Another famous skating ground 
as late as 1850 was at the south¬ 
west corner of Central Park and 
Fifth Avenue. 

There is still real low land in 
various parts of the city that must 
be filled before it can be used for 
building purposes. When it is 







KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN 


filled it will become valuable, and 
within a few years will, no doubt, 
be the building site of other great 
buildings as large and even larger 
than those in New York City 
to-day. 

Litter on the Streets.—Not only 
must waste be disposed of but the 
streets must be kept clean. Re¬ 
ceptacles are placed here and 
there so people may have a place 
to deposit their newspapers, fruit 
peelings, and other litter. It is un¬ 
fortunate, however, that so many 
forget their home manners. They 
throw papers about and do many 
things on the streets that they 
never think of doing in their own 
homes. Every bit of carelessness 
that adds to the burden of the 
street cleaners must be paid for in 
extra taxes, so we pay for our own 
carelessness after all. 

A great deal of the cleaning of 
the streets is done by hand sweep¬ 
ing. We call the sweepers “ white 
wings.” Each sweeper is respon¬ 
sible for the cleaning of a certain 
number of streets. 

School children have a good op¬ 
portunity to act the part of junior 
citizens in the various leagues that 
have been formed in the schools to 
cooperate with the cleaners in 
keeping the neighborhoods free 


53 

from litter and trash and cleaning 
out unsightly places. 

Street Flushing.—Just as the 
scrub brush is necessary in the 
home, so the brush and water is 
needed in the streets. Hand 
flushing with a hose is the simplest 
way to wash the streets. This 
loosens up the dirt and cleans the 
pavement of dirt that cannot be 
easily swept away. 

The housekeeper has the vacuum 
cleaner that brushes the dirt loose 
and then cleans it out of the rugs 
or off the floors. The street clean¬ 
ing department has the “Squee¬ 
gee,” a power machine that is 
really a series of scrubbing 
brushes on wheels. The machine 
sprinkles the street and brushes it 
at the same time. It is a combi¬ 
nation flusher and sweeper. Other 
types of power sweeping machines 
are also used. 

Much of the machine cleaning is 
done at night when the streets are 
clear of traffic. 

If all citizens were to observe 
the street cleaning department’s 
work until they realized how much 
must be done to keep the city 
clean, it is certain that they would 
agree that of all the many signs 
in New York and other cities the 
largest and most numerous, so 


54 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Broum Bros. 

Hauling away snow. 


placed that all might read as they 
run, should he “Keep the Streets 
Clean.’ ’ 

Much dirt and trash found on 
the street is “avoidable” dirt and 
should be so regarded. Not so, 
however, with the snow. 

Removal of Snow.—Snow in the 
open country is beautiful. It is a 
fine covering for the wintering 
crops, and outside of the few paths 
that must be cleaned, it means lit¬ 
tle to the country dweller. In a city 
like New York, however, except 
in the parks, snow is a nuisance to 
be disposed of as soon as possible. 
Traffic must be kept moving or the 
business of the city is seriously 
affected. A traffic tie-up would 
within a few days mean a hungry 
city, a dirty city, and an unhealthy 
city. 


The present plan of getting rid 
of the snow is by “snow fighting.” 
The names and addresses of all 
available men for snow fighting 
are collected in the summer and 
kept on file so they may be called 
out by the Police Department 
when needed. 

Snowplows are used to clean 
the center of the streets. The 
snow is piled and then either 
carted away or the manholes of 
the sewers are opened and the 
snow is dumped into the sewers. 
About one-third of the area in the 
most populous boroughs is cleaned 
in this way. 

Sewers and Sewage.—Besides the 
waste of the streets, the liquid 
waste of the thousands of homes 
in the city must be carried away. 
To take care of all this there are 
more than twenty-eight hundred 
miles of sewers, enough to con¬ 
struct a sewer nearly from coast 
to coast across the United States. 
The sewage flows through the 
sewers and empties into the tidal 
waters around the city. Thus far 
little thought has been given to the 
purification of the sewage or 
methods of treating it so as to stop 
the pollution of the waters near 
the city. With all the other excel¬ 
lent health work in the city, it 



KEEPING THE CITY CLEAN 


55 



Brown Bros. 


Children at work beautifying school grounds. 

seems strange that one of the 
greatest menaces to the city’s wel¬ 
fare should be left with so little 
done to improve conditions. 

With the poisonous sewage flow¬ 
ing into the shore waters, bathing 
and shell-fish culture are unsafe. 
All floating and other public baths 
have been closed by order of the 
Board of Health for this reason. 

Several plans have been pro¬ 
posed to remedy the evil effects of 


the sewage in the harbor waters. 
Sewage treatment plants are be¬ 
ing constructed. These plants will 
divert the sewage from the harbor 
and take away the poisonous ef¬ 
fect that it has now. Such plants 
cost large amounts of money and 
require considerable space, so it 
will be several years before the 
city can meet the problem of sew¬ 
age pollution as it should be met. 

Every Day a Clean-up Day.—This 
big job of “house cleaning” must 
continue day after day the year 
round. The sweeper who cleans 
his allotted streets to-day knows 
that another day will bring an¬ 
other lot of dirt and litter. Rub¬ 
bish and ashes accumulate and 
must be removed. As long as the 
machinery of the Street Cleaning 
Department runs smoothly, the av¬ 
erage citizen takes little notice of 
its work. Too often we are 
thoughtless about cleanliness in 
the city because everything is 
taken care of for us. 


Questions 

I. Give five ways in which you can help IV. Why is snow a nuisance in the 

the street cleaning department. city? 

II. Why is garbage taken so far out to V. What are the dangers that may arise 

sea? from sewage in the river and harbor 

III. Why do contractors find it worth waters? 

while to pay for the privilege of sorting VI. How can you help to keep the city 
rubbish ? clean ? 



56 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


CHAPTER VIII 

The Care of Life and Property 


The Guardians of Public Safety.— 

For whom do we immediately 
look in case of an accident, when 
there is a traffic jam, or when help 
is needed for any purpose on the 
city street! Every city dweller, 
except the criminal or the one who 
may be trying to break the law in 
some way, knows that his best 
friend in case of need is the police¬ 
man. The policeman is always at 
onr call. There are no vacation 
periods when all the police force 
leaves town, nor are there strikes 
when all lay off for an increase in 
pay or for some other reason. 
President Coolidge made it plain 
when he was governor of Massa¬ 
chusetts that there should be no 
strikes of the police force. He 
said, at the time when there was a. 
threatened strike of the police in 
Boston, that “There is no right 
to strike against the public safety 
by anybody, anywhere, at any 
time.” 

“Public Safety” is the reason 
for police forces. To look after 
the safety of a city as large as New 
York requires a small army of men 
and women. 



Brown Bros. 

A lesson in identification for policemen and 
detectives. 


The Police Department. — The 

chief executive officer of the Police 
Department is the Commissioner, 
appointed by the Mayor for a term 
of five years. 

The Patrolman.—The one in the 
Department w T ho comes nearest to 
the life of the average citizen is 
the patrolman. The patrolman 
is at the call of the householder 
if there is serious trouble. He is 
usually the first to give aid in case 
of accident. The fact that he is 
present goes far in keeping the 
criminal away from the neighbor- 





57 


THE CARE OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 


hood. He arrests the offender 
caught breaking the law. Last, but 
not least, the patrolman directs the 
city traffic so business may be car¬ 
ried on and the life of the pedes¬ 
trian made safe. 

Of course, one man cannot be 
expected to do all of what we have 
outlined. In order to properly 
care for the different needs, the 
police force is divided up into 
various squads, and each squad is 
especially trained for its particu¬ 
lar work. 

Regulating Traffic.—In the busy 
sections of New York the regula¬ 
tion of traffic is a serious matter. 
With the rapid growth of the city 
and the increase in the number of 
automobiles and trucks, some of 
the principal streets become liter¬ 
ally clogged with vehicles. To 
remedy this, in August, 1918, a 
plan of distributing the traffic 
throughout Manhattan was made. 
By this plan certain north and 
south avenues were given over to 
passenger vehicles, while others 
were assigned to the commercial 
vehicles. Certain of the cross¬ 
town streets were made one-way 
streets. 

Car-stop safety zones have been 
placed in the streets to protect 
passengers while boarding or 



Brown Bros. 


Fifth Avenue north from Thirty-third Street. 

A traffic tower is in the foreground. 

alighting from street cars. In 
many busy streets safety aisles 
have been placed. These aisles 
prevent collisions of vehicles. 
They also furnish a safe place for 
the people crossing the streets. In 
many sections where traffic inter¬ 
feres with play on the streets, the 
streets are closed during certain 
hours of the day and the children 
are allowed to play under the di¬ 
rection of a policeman. 





58 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 

A safe crossing. 

On Fifth Avenue (and other 
avenues) signal towers have been 
placed, and the traffic is regulated 
by a system of lights controlled by 
men in these towers. 

Special Police Squads.—The ma¬ 
rine squad patrols the harbor and 
river-front waters, and watches 
for thieves and other offenders 
that cannot be watched by the 
patrolmen on land. 

There is often need of haste in 
overtaking speeding automobiles, 
fleeing criminals, etc. The motor¬ 
cycle squad is provided for this 
work. 

Besides these divisions of the po¬ 
lice force, there is the bomb squad, 
the industrial squad that makes it¬ 
self familiar with labor problems. 
In case of strikes this squad en¬ 
forces the law against unfair tac¬ 
tics and the work of professional 


leaders who lend their aid to cause 
as much trouble as possible. 

The gangs of thieves and other 
criminals are watched by the gang¬ 
ster squad. This squad raids the 
gang headquarters when some of 
its members are suspected. Coun¬ 
terfeiting and bootlegging gangs 
receive the special attention of this 
squad. 

One of the most important 
branches of the service is the 
Bureau of Missing Persons. This 
department has a world-wide rep¬ 
utation and receives appeals from 
all over the world. Recently 
descriptions of missing persons 
have been broadcasted from the 
Municipal Broadcasting Station 
WNYC. 

Identification of Criminals. — A 

very useful department, the pur¬ 
pose of which is to keep records of 
criminals, is maintained at the po¬ 
lice headquarters. In this depart¬ 
ment is to be found the 4 ‘ rogues ’ 
gallery,’’ a complete file of photo¬ 
graphs of men and women who 
have committed crimes. There 
are also finger-print records. By 
these means a criminal arrested 
anywhere may be identified. It 
has recently become possible to 
send finger-print impressions by 
radio, so the work of identification 




THE CARE OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 


59 


will be easy no matter where the 
criminal may be found. With such 
records always available many 
crimes will be prevented that 
otherwise would be committed if 
the offender knew he could not be 
identified if caught. Every crim¬ 
inal knows that a second, third, or 
fourth offense means a long term 
of imprisonment. 

Licenses and Permits.— The Police 
Department has a wide range of 
duties besides those mentioned. 
One department passes on the li¬ 
cense application of engineers and 
firemen in industrial plants in New 
York City. Permits of various 
kinds are also issued by the police. 

Education of Drivers.— In order 
to reduce the number of street ac¬ 
cidents, the Public Safety Bureau 
was organized in 1923. The work 
of this bureau is to educate driv¬ 
ers of automobiles and others 
through lectures, printed rules, 
etc,, how to avoid doing the wrong 
thing. 

The Training of Policemen.— With 
all these duties and responsibili¬ 
ties the members of the police 
force must be trained in some man¬ 
ner if they are to do their work 
well. Such a training is provided 
in the Training School. As soon 
as a policeman is appointed for a 


trial period of six months, he is 
sent to school. Here he is put 
through a rigid course of instruc¬ 
tion, both mental and physical, un¬ 
til he is able to pass the required 
examinations. In this school the 
patrolman is taught the meaning 
of the rules and regulations of the 
department. He is taught how to 
handle a revolver ; the reading of 
finger prints is explained to him; 
he is taught to make out all sorts 
of papers required in court pro¬ 
cedures where he may be con¬ 
cerned. 

You can see from all this why 
New York has such an excellent 
police force. A parade of the New 
York police is equal to a parade of 
the finest soldiers. They are, in¬ 
deed, a “Peace Army,” always 
prepared to protect the citizen’s 
life and property. 

Fire Losses.— The annual loss by 
fire in the United States is enough 
to build nearly as many schools at 
a million dollars each as there are 
elementary schools in all the bor¬ 
oughs of New York City outside 
Manhattan. This loss is enough 
to build twenty thousand houses, 
with fifty-foot lots, at five thousand 
dollars each, on both sides of a 
street thirty-seven miles long, 
making no allowance for cross 


60 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


streets. It would pay for building 
a dozen bridges like Brooklyn 
Bridge. Somewhere all the time, 
in our country, some one is fight¬ 
ing fire. It may be a little blaze 
that does a few dollars’ worth of 
damage, a school building in the 
country where thirty-three people 
lost their lives, as in the case of the 
Oklahoma school at Christmas 
time in 1894, or a great pier fire 
as in Jersey City in December, 
1924, where over a million dollars ’ 
worth of property was destroyed. 

New York City is no exception. 
Fires are frequent and as costly 
in New York as elsewhere. Any 



Brown Bros. 

Firemen must know how to rescue fire 
victims. 


daily newspaper of any issue will 
give you an account of destructive 
fires. 



Brown Bros. 


An excellent type of fire engine. 

The Fire Department.—The police 
are aided in their work of life and 
property protection by the Fire 
Department. There was a time, 
and that time was very recent, 
when there was no fire protection 
except by volunteer fire fighters. 
The Fire Department to-day con¬ 
sists of more than six thousand 
men thoroughly trained in fire 
fighting. Like the police, these 
men are carefully selected. They 
must pass a civil service examina¬ 
tion first of all. Then they must 
pass a physical examination. If 
they are selected, they are ap¬ 
pointed on trial and are required 
to attend a school where instruc¬ 
tion is given in the ditf erent things 
that a good fireman must know— 
how to use ladders, ropes, and 





THE CARE OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 


61 



Brown Bros. 


The Rescue Squad at work. 

hose; how to jump into a life net, 
use a scaling ladder, and how to 
make a rescue. 

Old pictures show the tire horses 
galloping madly through the 
streets to the scene of the tire. 
That was a tine sight and was the 
best that could be done in early 
days. Now all apparatus is 
mounted on motor trucks. There 
is no delay in getting to the tire at 
a greater speed than the best of 
the horses could make. 

Putting out the tire is not all of 
tire fighting. Many of our stories 
of heroism are based upon rescues 
made by the brave firemen when it 
seemed that it was impossible to 
save the person shut off from es¬ 


cape by the fire. Saving human 
life is a great part of the service 
rendered the citizens by the Fire 
Department. 

At the head of this department 
is the Fire Commissioner ap¬ 
pointed by the Mayor. 

Paying Fire Losses.—Who pays 
the fire loss? All of us. The 
burned building may have been in¬ 
sured, but some one must furnish 
the money to pay for the loss. The 
money paid for fire insurance each 
year in this country amounts to 
over a billion dollars. This money 
is paid by the citizens to the 
tradesman who considers his in¬ 
surance premiums a part of his 



Brown Bros. 


Scaling a wall by means of a rope. A les¬ 
son for firemen. 






62 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


A lesson in the sending of a fire alarm. 

expenses which he meets by charg¬ 
ing a trifle more for his goods. 

Fire Prevention.—As in every¬ 
thing else every one must do his 
part in prevention before he can 
be helped. Many fires are caused 
by carelessness. They are “ pre¬ 
ventable fires.” Buildings are 
built carelessly. There are open 
shafts, wooden stairways, poor 
wiring, etc. In some plants there 
is poor housekeeping. The stock 
is carelessly stored, and if it is 
easily inflammable it does not take 
much to start a fire. The Bureau 
of Fire Prevention looks after 
such matters. This bureau also 
looks after the installation of fire 
escapes and fire drills in factories, 
stores, and schools. This same bu¬ 


reau, through the 4 6 Fire Mar¬ 
shals,’ ’ investigates fires. A care¬ 
ful examination of the burned 
premises is made and filed. Such 
an examination acts as a check 
against many fires caused by per¬ 
sons who might start a fire if it 
were not for the fear of arrest and 
imprisonment. 

Fire prevention has been taught 
during the last few years in 
schools, homes, churches, and 
everywhere that people meet. In 
spite of all this fires continue, but 
we hope not so frequently as 
otherwise. Some of the rules that 
all should follow to help prevent 
fires are: 

1. Do not use matches carelessly. 

2. Clean stovepipes and chimneys fre¬ 
quently. 

3. Protect the floor under stoves with 
metal or other non-inflammable ma¬ 
terial. 

4. Protect walls near stoves or furnace 
pipes with some covering. 

5. Do not allow inflammable rubbish, pa¬ 
per, broken furniture, etc., to accumu¬ 
late in the attic or cellar. Place such 
stuff in bundles or containers and have 
it removed by the Street Cleaning De¬ 
partment. 

6. Place all oily rags in metal containers 
with a tight top. 

7. Smokers should not throw away care¬ 
lessly matches, lighted cigars, or ciga¬ 
rettes. 



THE CARE OF LIFE AND PROPERTY 


63 


8. Know where the nearest fire-alarm box 
to your house is located. 

9. Disconnect electric irons after using. 

10. Do not block fire escapes with rubbish, 
etc. 

11. Know the fire exits of the building in 
which you live. 

12. Do not go into a dark closet with a 
lighted match or candle. 

13. Do not light fires with kerosene or 
gasoline. 

14. Do not use lighted candles on Christ¬ 
mas trees. 

15. Keep curtains away from open gas 
flames. 

16. Do not look for gas leaks with a match 
or candle. 

Cautions in Case of Fire. —There 
are other cautions to be observed. 
Each home has its own problem in 
preventing fires. 

A fire usually causes fright, and 
life and property is often lost 
where a little cool-headed action 
would help people to escape and 
perhaps save the building from de¬ 
struction. 

If caught in a burning building, 
try not to frighten others into a 
panic by shouting “Fire!” If 



Brown Bros. 


A parade of the New York City police. 

there is a fire extinguisher near, 
you may extinguish the fire before 
it gains much headway. Do not 
open doors or windows that will 
cause a draft. If the fire is in a 
room of a dwelling and there are 
no means at hand to extinguish it, 
all doors of that room should be 
kept closed if possible until- the 
Fire Department arrives. 

In case of discovery of a fire at 
any time always turn in an alarm. 
Every citizen should know how to 
operate a fire-alarm box. 


Questions 

I. What might be the result of a strike IV. Where is the fire-alarm box nearest 

of the police force? your home or school? 

II. Explain the term, “Public Safety.” V. Who pays for fire losses? Explain. 

III. Make a list of ten “don’ts” that will VI. Did a policeman ever help you in 

aid in fire prevention. any way?. Explain. 





64 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


CHAPTEE IX 
A Giant Schoolhouse 


A Host to Educate.—There are 
over a million school children in 
New York City and five million 
adults. Every one of this vast 



The Giant School House, The Museum of 
Natural History. 


army of people may find some 
place in the city where they may 
attend school. Not exactly the 
school that we usually think of 
when we speak of “the city 
schools” but nevertheless a school. 

A School Without Books.—What 
has been called the greatest school- 
house on earth is pictured on this 
page. Here, in this wonderful 
building, the largest of its kind in 
the city, are to be seen over three 


and one-half million different ob¬ 
jects. If it were possible to look 
at three thousand objects per day, 
it would take twelve hundred days 
to view them all. 

The Natural History Museum is 
a schoolhouse where lectures are 
attended by about eighty thousand 
children in a single year. Nature 
study collections are furnished the 
public schools. Special study col¬ 
lections are provided for the blind 
and adults of New York City and 
other cities. 

In this schoolhouse the book is 
replaced by the thing itself. You 



Courtesy Natural History Museum. 


Wild bird life as shown in the bird section 
of the Natural History Museum. 







A GIANT SCHOOLHOUSE 


65 



Courtesy Natural History Museum. 

The beaver dam in the Natural History 
Museum. 


may see the Indians of Manhattan, 
Indians of the plains and wood¬ 
lands, the buffalo hunters, and the 
cliff dwellers. Here are all the 
birds of the air, animals of the for¬ 
ests, and the fish of all ages from 
the seas. How real is the story 
of Peary’s discovery of the North 
Pole when you see Peary’s dogs, 
his sledge, and the route that he 
followed shown on a massive globe. 
The great Panama Canal is shown 
by a small reproduction. You may 
see the disease-carrying flea, mos¬ 
quito, and fly, and learn how the 
victory was won against yellow 
fever and other terrible diseases. 

From this wonderful school- 
house in the heart of a great city 
you may travel to all the wild 


regions and secret places of the 
earth. What a treasure house at 
our own door! Best of all, it is 
free every day to all who wish to 
view its wonders. 

Art Treasures.—The Metropoli¬ 
tan Museum of Art is another 
schoolhouse where you may learn 
by seeing. In this museum collec¬ 
tions that show the history of 
painting and other works of art of 
all countries are exhibited. To ex¬ 
plain the collections to the chil¬ 
dren, story hours are held on 
Saturday mornings and Sunday 
afternoons. Other lectures are 
given for high school students and 
pupils of special schools. Lantern 
slides, casts, photographs, post 



Brown Bros. 


The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth 
Avenue. 





66 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



cards, etc., are loaned free to 
schools and clubs. Study hours 
are also held for salespeople, de¬ 
signers, and manufacturers. 

What a great privilege! Have 
you ever used a Saturday holiday 
to visit either of these museums? 


Permission New York Zoological Society. 

One of the many scenes to he found at the 
Aquarium. 

Fish from All the Seas.—Besides 
these two great museums, the city 
maintains the Aquarium in Bat¬ 
tery Park. The Aquarium build¬ 
ing was at first a fort connected 
with Battery Park by a bridge. In 
1823 it was ceded by Congress to 
New York City. It was used as 
a place of amusement and called 
Castle Garden. From 1855 to 1890 
it was used as a landing place for 


immigrants. When Ellis Island 
was made the immigrant landing 
station in 1890, the old fort was 
remodeled, and in 1896 it became 
the home of the Aquarium. 

Here, face to face, fish from all 
the seas may be seen. There are 
seven floor pools, where all sorts 
of water inhabitants from small 
turtles to crocodiles may be 
viewed. A fish hatchery main¬ 
tained as an exhibit furnishes 
millions of young food and game 
fishes for rivers and lakes in New 
York State every year. 

The Animal World Brought to the 
City.—Take a trip to the Zoological 
Park in The Bronx. Here again 
the animal world is brought to the 


Brown Bros. 

Botanical Building, Bronx Park. 








A GIANT SCHOOLHOUSE 


67 



Brown Bros. 


A corner of the buffalo pen in Bronx Park. 

city—not in a glass cage, however, 
as in the Museum of Natural His¬ 
tory, but in flesh and blood. Bears, 
buffaloes, deer, and other wild ani¬ 
mals are in large enclosed spaces. 
The monkeys have roomy cages; 
the sea lions may be seen in their 
large tank; there are hundreds of 
birds in large cages. A late cen¬ 
sus of the New York Zoological 
Park gives the following facts. 
More specimens are being added 
every day. 

Mammals .. 196 Species 629 Specimens 

Birds . 797 Species 2412 Specimens 

Reptiles and 
Amphibi¬ 
ans . 85 Species 465 Specimens 

Total ... 1078 Species 3506 Specimens 


In Central Park on a smaller 
scale is another collection of ani¬ 
mals and birds. 

There are many other museums 
scattered about the city. The 
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and 
Sciences serves the public and the 
schools as does the Museum of 
Natural History. 

The Public School.—For the chil¬ 
dren of school age, New York City 
provides a complete system of 
schools. 

The Board of Education of New 
York City is composed of seven 
members appointed by the Mayor. 
Two members are selected from 
each of the two larger boroughs 
and one each from the smaller bor¬ 
oughs. The term of office of the 
Board members is seven years. 
The city is divided into forty-six 
school districts, each having its 
own school board of five members. 

The direct management of the 
schools rests with the Board of 
Superintendents, made up of the 
City Superintendent of Schools 
and eight associate superintend¬ 
ents appointed by the Board of 
Education for six years. There 
are also twenty-seven district 
superintendents selected by the 
Board of Superintendents. 

Every Child Provided For. — 






68 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


George Washington High School, New York 
City. 

Every year of the school life of 
every hoy and girl is provided for. 
Besides the ordinary elementary 
schools, there are the kinder¬ 
gartens for the children too young 
for the first grade. Training is 
given in the schools in machine- 
shop practice, sheet metal work, 
electric wiring, plumbing, print¬ 
ing, sign painting, trade drawing, 
woodworking, government design¬ 
ing, book binding, millinery, dress¬ 
making, power machine operating, 
pottery making, novelty work, and 
home making. Indeed, what was 
once thought of as the essentials 
of a school—reading, writing, and 
arithmetic—form a small part of 
the big field covered by our 
modern schools. 


All sorts of special classes are 
to be found in the city schools. 
There are classes for those who 
are weak mentally or physically, 
for the foreign born, for those who 
can advance more rapidly than 
others, for the blind, the deaf, and 
the crippled, and also for those 
who are defective in speech. 

Besides the elementary schools, 
the junior high schools, and the 
high schools, there are three train¬ 
ing schools for teachers—one in 
Manhattan, one in Brooklyn, and 
one in Queens. 

There are three trade schools 
for boys. The Manhattan Trade 
School for Girls is open to grad¬ 
uates of elementary schools or to 
those who are fourteen years of 
age and have enough education to 
profit from the instruction in the 
trade school. 

For the boys and girls who have 
left school for the trades, depart¬ 
ment stores, hotels, and shops, 
continuation schools are provided. 
These employees attend classes a 
few hours each week. 

School at Night. — Evening 
schools are open to the many 
youths and adults who have no 
other opportunity to attend school. 
A complete education as offered in 
the day schools may be obtained 



4 GIANT SCHOOLHOUSE 


69 


in these evening schools. Much of 
the work of instructing the foreign 
horn in the English language is 
done in the evening classes. Many 
of the prominent men of New York 
to-day first learned the English 
language in an evening class. 

The Bureau of Lectures con¬ 
ducts a system of lectures on vari¬ 
ous subjects in the schools and 
other places for the benefit of the 
adult public. 

No one is missed by Father 
Knickerbocker in his attempt to 
educate his children. 

Colleges and Universities.—The 
graduates of the high schools of 
the city find at their door some of 
the great universities of the na¬ 
tion. Hunter College gives free 
education to women residents of 
the city. Other institutions are 
Columbia University, founded in 
1754 as King’s College, The Col¬ 
lege of the City of New York, New 
York University, Fordham Uni¬ 
versity, and many others. 

The city and state have been 
good to the boys and girls. It has 
long been known that the first ne¬ 
cessity of success is education. If 
the city is to succeed, all of its 
citizens must have some education, 
so laws regulating school attend 
ance have been passed. It would 



Brown Bros. 


The Hall of Fame, New York University. 

seem that with the museums, 
parks, and schools open for those 
who may come, there would be no 
need of a department to enforce 
attendance, but such is not the 
case. 

School Attendance Enforced.—The 

city maintains a department to en¬ 
force the compulsory school at¬ 
tendance law. For those who 
will not attend otherwise, truant 
schools are maintained for both 
boys and girls. 

Libraries an Aid to the Schools.— 

We should not leave the subject of 
education without mentioning one 
of the greatest aids to education in 
the city—the public libraries. Do 
you wish a book on any subject to 
help in your history work? Does 




70 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


The Public Library at Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, New York City. This is one 
of the most beautiful buildings in the city. 


the housewife want to get informa¬ 
tion on some subject about house¬ 
keeping? The tradesman wishes 
to find some facts about his busi¬ 
ness. Perhaps the city employee 
wants to see a city report. Where 
are these books to be found? In 
the libraries. Every kind of book, 
map, and thousands of pictures are 
to be found in the public libraries. 

There are three public library 
systems in the city of New York: 

(1) the New York Public Library; 

(2) the Brooklyn Public Library; 

(3) the Queens Borough Public 


Library. These three systems 
maintain ninety-four branches all 
the way from Tottenville, Staten 
Island, to Kingsbridge Avenue in 
The Bronx, a distance of forty 
miles. 

The central building of the New 
York Public Library is at Fifth 
Avenue and Forty-second Street. 
The builditig opened in 1911. Its 
construction cost nine million dol¬ 
lars. Of all the wonderful build¬ 
ings in New York, many think it 
the finest. In addition to the gen¬ 
eral reading room there is an. ex- 










PLAY PLACES 


tensive picture gallery. There are 
also special reading rooms for 
American history, art, music; Sla¬ 
vonic, Jewish, and Oriental litera¬ 
ture; science, newspapers, maps, 
and other subjects. More than 
seven thousand people visit this 
library every day. It is open to 


71 

every one free of charge. A won¬ 
derful privilege indeed. 

Truly the city of New York has 
provided opportunities to all who 
wish to spend their leisure time 
profitably. If they wish for pleas¬ 
ure, the story in the next chapter 
will meet their needs. 


Questions 

I. Why is the Museum of Natural His- IV. How does the library aid you ? 

tory a “Giant Schoolhouse” ? V. Explain the term “learning by see- 

II. What is a “complete” system of ing.” 

schools? VI. What museums have you visited? 

III. What is a compulsory education What did you learn there? 
law? Why is it needed? 


CHAPTER X 
Play Places 


The Need of Play.—'All work 
and no play makes Jack a dull 
boy. ’ ’ 

It is well enough to talk about 
the importance of industries and 
the necessity of schools. The city 
would not be a progressive city 
without them. Neither would it 
be a pleasant city to live in if no 
one could ever look forward to a 
play spell. We all like to play. 
We forget the cares of the day and 
are prepared cheerfully to attack 
the next job that we may meet. 



Brown Bros. 


A city playground. 






72 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


What is play! Whatever is 
enough different from our regular 
work to give pleasure may be 
called play. It may be a game of 
ball for the boy, golf for a man, 
tennis for a girl, or, indeed, to 
some it may be deep study in the 
library. 



Brown Bros. 


The Education Building at Albany. 

The Value of Play.—Play is called 
recreation because it refreshes us 
and rests us from our daily work. 
The city fathers know the value of 
recreation, and all sorts of ways 
are provided for amusement and 
pleasure. It is known that the 
manner in which children amuse 
themselves does much to determine 
what kind of men and women they 
are to be. Knowing this, every 
possible effort is made to have a 


happy, healthy, contented people. 

Good Places to Play.—Fun that 
pays comes from a visit to the 
Aquarium. You can enjoy gaz¬ 
ing into the wondering eyes of the 
many queer fish. You also can 
carry away with you a host of 
ideas about the different kinds of 
fish. 

The Zoological Park is always 
filled with children. It is real fun 
to walk and be out in the open if 
there is a polar bear around the 
next corner or a cage of monkeys 
at the end of the park a mile away. 

The head of the Department of 
Parks is the Park Board, which 
consists of five commissioners ap¬ 
pointed by the Mayor, one com¬ 
missioner for each of the five bor¬ 
oughs. The Park Board controls 
8,500 acres of park land, maintains 
one hundred twenty miles of park¬ 
way, and operates one hundred 
eight playgrounds and nine rec¬ 
reational piers in addition to pub¬ 
lic baths and bathing beaches. 

Park land is devoted to a great 
many different uses. Some of the 
parks have broad stretches of 
woodlands where beautiful drives 
and walks may be laid out. There 
are five public golf links in the 
parks. In several parks there are 
public tennis courts and baseball 






PLAY PLACES 


73 




Brown Bros. 

The hoard walk at Coney Island. 

diamonds. Other games, like bas¬ 
ket ball, cricket, polo, skating, cro¬ 
quet, bowling on the green, field 
hockey, etc., are provided. 

Over one hundred playgrounds 
are maintained. One of the most 
modern and best equipped of these 
is the Betsey Head Playground, 
located in a very densely popu¬ 
lated section of Brooklyn. This 
playground includes a children’s 
playground, sand piles, swings, 
slides, seesaws, an athletic field, a 
swimming pool with a bath house, 
a running track, game fields, and a 
gymnasium for men and women. 
It also contains five hundred chil¬ 
dren’s school farm plots and a 
model farmhouse. 


In some of the parks are small 
lakes where children can paddle 
and sail their tiny boats in the 
summer and skate in the winter. 
In the hilly sections coasting is the 
favorite sport in the winter. 

A hot summer day finds thou¬ 
sands of men, women, and children 
at the beaches. The ocean is al¬ 
ways cool. The fresh cool breeze 
off the water and the refreshing 
bath are well worth the long trip 
to the shore. 

In the crowded sections of the 
city where hundreds of children 
have no place to play, some of the 
streets are closed so a real play 
space may be provided. The 
Fire Department provides shower 


An ocean beach on Coney Island. 








74 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


baths. At night on the clean 
streets block dances are held. 
Thus the playground is brought 
to every one’s door. 

Parks of New York.—Some of the 
most important parks of the 
city are Central Park, Bronx 
Park, Prospect Park, Morningside 
Park, Mount Morris Park, Brook¬ 
lyn Botanical Gardens, Bowling 
Green, Battery Park, City Hall 
Park, Riverside Drive Park, and 
Van Cortlandt Park. 

Central Park is between Fifth 
and Eighth avenues and extends 
from Fifty-ninth to One Hmidred 
and Tenth Street in Manhattan. 
The principal points of interest in 
this park are the American Mu¬ 
seum of Natural History, Colum¬ 
bus Circle, Croton Reservoir, 
Egyptian Obelisk, Metropolitan 
Art Museum, and the Menagerie. 
There are also many monuments 
and several places of historic in¬ 
terest. 

Bronx Park is in the northeast¬ 
ern part of the Borough of The 
Bronx. It contains the Zoological 
Park and the New York Botanical 
Gardens. 

Prospect Park is in Brooklyn 
and is considered one of the most 
picturesque parks of the city. 
Morningside Park extends from 



Brown Bros. 


The seal pool in the zoo, Bronx Park. 

One Hundred and Tenth Street to 
One Hundred and Twenty-third 
Street between Columbus and Am¬ 
sterdam avenues. Between One 
Hundred and Twentieth and One 
Hundred and Twenty-fourth 
Streets at Madison Avenue is 
Mount Morris Park. The Brook¬ 
lyn Botanical Garden is bounded 
by Eastern Parkway, Empire 
Boulevard, Flatbush and Wash¬ 
ington avenues. Bowling Green, 
Battery Park and the City Hall 
Park are at the southern end of 
Manhattan. Riverside Drive is a 
beautiful riverside park along the 
Hudson between Seventy-second 
and One Hundred and Twenty- 




PLAY PLACES 


75 


ninth Streets. Along Broadway at 
the northern limit of the city is 
Van Cortlandt Park. 

The Care of Play Places.—With all 
of these parks provided free for 
the public to use for sight seeing 
or as playgrounds, it seems that 
every child and adult would do 
their part to keep them in good 
condition. Do they help or de¬ 
stroy? Signs are everywhere: 
“Do Not Pick the Flowers/ 7 “Do 
Not Break the Shrubbery/* “Keep 
Off the Grass/ 7 “Do Not Feed the 
Animals/ 7 “Do Not Lean Against 
the Cases/ 7 “Check Your Um¬ 
brellas and Canes/ 7 “Do Not Move 
the Benches/ 7 “Throw Waste 
Papers in the Receptacles Pro¬ 
vided/ 7 “Do Not Annoy the Ani¬ 


mals/ 7 “Do Not Touch. 77 All 
these and many more—why? 

Places of Entertainment.—Besides 
the parks and playgrounds of va¬ 
rious kinds, there are more than 
fourteen hundred theaters in the 
city. Within a few blocks of every 
home in the city is some sort of 
place of entertainment where the 
evening n^ay be spent. Nearly a 
half million people could be seated 
in these theaters at one time. 

Many of the largest and finest of 
the theaters in the city are in the 
region of Forty-second Street and 
Broadway, within a few blocks 
from Times Square. 

Father Knickerbocker has in¬ 
deed taken care of the play periods 
of his children. 


Questions 


I. What is the value of play? 

II. Why is something that is work for 
one person play for another? 

III. Give three reasons why the number 
of playgrounds should be increased. 


IV. What purposes does a park like 
Central Park serve? 

Y. Why are people careless about park 
property? 

VI. What is meant by entertainment? 


76 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 

CHAPTER XI 

The Health of the City 


Keeping Well.—When we speak 
of health many of ns are liable to 
think of sickness. The city is in¬ 
terested in caring for those who 
are ill, hut it is more interested in 
preventing others from becoming 
ill. Every possible effort is be¬ 
ing made to regulate our lives so 
that we may be healthy and stay 
so. Life is longer to-day than it 
was fifty years ago and there is 
much less illness. Such truths 
prove the value of our giving 
health protection our daily atten¬ 
tion. 

The Cost of Illness.—Illness costs 
money because of time lost from 
work. It also causes much suffer¬ 
ing. We think little of our health 
while we are well and too often do 
foolish things that bring on a siege 
of sickness. If we become ill, our 
first thought is what we might 
have done to avoid our sad condi¬ 
tion. 

The Health Department.—There 
are many things that may be done 
to avoid sickness and disease. One 
of the great departments of the 
city government gives all its time 
to working for better health condi¬ 
tions. If there are cases of ill¬ 


ness, efforts are made to give them 
the best of care. 

The Board of Health in New 
York City is composed of the Com¬ 
missioner of Health, who is also 
the president of the board, the 
Police Commissioner, and a duly 
qualified physician who is chosen 
by the Board of Estimate and Ap¬ 
portionment. This board is the 
head of the Department of Health 
of the city. It enacts the Sanitary 
Code, issues emergency health 
orders, and has very broad powers 
in all matters affecting public 
health. 

The official in direct charge of 
the enforcement of the Sanitary 
Code and other health laws is the 
Commissioner of Health. He is 
appointed by the Mayor. 

The health work is carried on 
through nine different bureaus 
working under the direction of the 
Board of Health. One bureau 
looks after cases of preventable 
diseases such as smallpox, typhus, 
typhoid fever, diphtheria, tubercu¬ 
losis, etc. Nurses are employed 
who visit homes and instruct fam¬ 
ilies to care for the ill. Clinics are 
kept to vaccinate against small- 



THE HEALTH OF THE CITY 


77 


pox, typhoid fever, and also to 
give the Pasteur treatment to pre¬ 
vent hydrophobia. When desired 
the Schick test is given for diph¬ 
theria. 

The Worst Disease.—Of all pre¬ 
ventable diseases tuberculosis is 
the most harmful. This disease 
thrives where there are poor liv¬ 
ing conditions, where there is dirt 
and bad air in the homes. That 
this disease may be prevented is 
shown by the fact that even though 
the population of the city has in¬ 
creased greatly, the death rate 
from tuberculosis is the lowest in 
its history. 

Caring for Children.—The Bureau 
of Child Hygiene is responsible 
for the care of the health of in¬ 
fants and children ,in the great 
city from birth until graduation 
from school. This bureau issues 
employment certificates to chil¬ 
dren who are of the proper age 
and physically fit to work. Boys 
and girls are thus protected by 
being kept from hard labor until 
they are old and strong enough to 
do the work required of them with¬ 
out breaking down their health. 

A very important work of this 
bureau is the care of babies. 
Every mother of a new-born babe 
receives from the Department of 



Health a copy of the certificate of 
birth in addition to a letter relat¬ 
ing to the care of babies and call¬ 
ing attention to the service offered 
by the sixty Baby Health Stations 
which are maintained by the de¬ 
partment in the city. 

Nurses are assigned to visit 
homes where there are babies to 
see that the little ones receive the 
proper care that will keep them 
well and healthy. 

Does it pay? Yes, the babies 
are saved; homes are happier; a 
healthy child is started on his or 
her way to a better manhood or 
womanhood. The death rate 
among infants in New York City 
is the lowest of any of the ten 
largest cities in the United States. 

Pure Food and Drug Laws.—The 







METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Bureau of Foods and Drugs is 
charged with the enforcement of 
the health laws bearing upon the 
quality of all drugs, foods, and 
drinks sold in the city. Its officers 
inspect dairies, creameries, and all 
plants where milk is handled. All 
shell fish to be sold in the city are 
inspected. The premises where 
various kinds of foods are handled 
or sold are regularly inspected. 
This includes all bakeries, confec¬ 
tionaries, fat rendering plants, 
ice cream factories, restaurants, 
slaughter houses, warehouses, 
piers, railroad terminals, milk de¬ 
pots, and all retail food stores of 
every kind. 

Making Better Homes.—The Sani¬ 
tary Bureau is charged with keep¬ 
ing the city clean. Officers from 
this bureau enforce the rules for 
the proper heating, lighting, ven¬ 
tilation, and plumbing of build¬ 
ings. The water supply of the 
city is examined regularly by this 
bureau. All public places where 
people assemble are inspected. 
Public bathing places are kept 
clean by this bureau. The head of 
this bureau is the Sanitary In¬ 
spector. 

Education and Health.—The bu¬ 
reau that works most through the 
public schools is the Bureau of 



Brown Bros. 


Learning housekeeping in school No. 45, 
The Bronx. 

Public Health Education. To this 
bureau falls the duty of spreading 
information about the health of 
the community. It gives exhibits 
in different places, furnishes lan¬ 
tern slides, photographs, and mo¬ 
tion pictures of the health work. 
In this way the public finds out 
what has been done and what 
every man, woman, and child can 
do to help the good work along. 
The bureau publishes weekly and 
monthly papers for physicians and 
for teachers and school children. 

Public Records of the Health De¬ 
partment.—The Bureau of Records 
keeps records of all deaths, births, 
and marriages in the city. This 
department also makes tables of 
health facts that are very useful 




CARING FOR TEE SICK AND NEEDY 


79 


in studying the health questions of 
the city. 

With all of these bureaus oper¬ 
ating along with other important 
departments, New York City cer¬ 
tainly does an excellent work for 
the health of its citizens. No mat¬ 
ter how much the city does, how¬ 
ever, it must have help from all of 
us if we reach the goal of “the 
cleanest city and the healthiest 


city in the land.” Every child 
must use care in what he eats, 
what he drinks, and how much or 
how little he exercises. He should 
get the proper number of hours of 
sleep. He can help the city to 
keep clean by keeping himself 
clean. Getting dirty is like get¬ 
ting into trouble; after you get 
into a little of it, it is much easier 
to get into more. 


Questions 

I. Why do people live longer than they III. What is meant by “good sanitary 

did formerly ? conditions” *? 

II. What is a “preventable” disease 1 ? IV. Name five rules of health that you 

Explain how diseases are prevented. have learned to follow. 


CHAPTER XII 

Taking Care of the Sick and Needy 


The City and the Unfortunate.— 

“Do a good deed daily” is a good 
slogan for all of us as well as for 
the boy scouts. Father Knicker¬ 
bocker with his six million chil¬ 
dren to care for is called upon to 
do several deeds of mercy and 
charity every hour. 

It is a good thing to try to keep 
every one well and healthy, but 
after everything is done the fact 
still remains that there are many 
who cannot care for themselves. 
These are the sick poor, the poor 
aged, the orphans, and the wid¬ 


owed mothers. Others are tempo¬ 
rarily poor, some are insane, still 
others are feeble-minded. All 
these classes are unfortunate and 
need the help of the city. How are 
they cared for? 

The Debtors’ Prison.—There was 
a time in our history when many 
of the poor spent their days in the 
debtors ’ prison. The orphans 
were “farmed” out to whoever 
would employ them. Too often 
the employer cared only for what 
work he could get out of the un¬ 
fortunate orphan. Feeble-minded 


80 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 




Brown Bros. 

Waiting for treatment in one of the city 
clinics. 


people were allowed to do as they 
wished as long as they could care 
for themselves. The insane were 
regarded as hopeless. They were 
shut up in the worst type of pris¬ 
onlike asylums and treated more 
like beasts than like human be¬ 
ings. 

City Hospitals.—New York City 
provides hospitals having over 
three thousand beds that are set 
aside for the needy poor; indeed, 
about three-quarters of those who 
are treated in the city hospitals 
pay no fee. 


Metropolitan Hospital on Wel¬ 
fare Island is one of the largest 
general hospitals in the United 
States, and is maintained espe¬ 
cially for the care and treatment of 
the destitute sick and injured and 
tuberculosis patients. Contagious 
diseases are barred from this hos¬ 
pital. There are eight other hos¬ 
pitals in various parts of the city 
established for the express pur¬ 
pose of caring for the needy poor. 

Each general public hospital has 
its own ambulance service. A city 
department called the Board of 
Ambulance Service directs the 
ambulance service. This board 
establishes ambulance stations 
throughout the city and lays out 
the routes for ambulances. An 
ambulance may be summoned by 
any citizen at any time during the 
day or night by telephoning Police 
Headquarters. Any telephone 
may be used for this purpose with¬ 
out cost. 

Training Nurses.—Nurses, like 
teachers, lawyers, doctors, and 
others who do a special work, must 
be trained. Where is the training 
given ? 

Many of the hospitals, such 
as the Metropolitan and City 
Hospitals in Manhattan, Kings 
County, and Cumberland Street 










CARING FOR THE SICK AND NEEDY 


81 


Hospitals in Brooklyn, maintain 
training schools for the training 
of nurses and social workers. The 
•course in nursing lasts two years. 
Any girl who has had one year of 
high school training may enter 
this course. 

Relief for the Distressed.—What 
of social service? A call comes to 
the hospital, to the school, to any 
one who is known to be interested 
in the welfare of the community. 
An old couple are ill; some one 
in a poor family is ill. Some one, 
somewhere, is in need. A nurse is 
sent to look after the one in dis¬ 
tress. Not only does she relieve 
them for the present but she 
makes plans for the future. Such 
relief is charity, hut it is more 
than charity. There is a sympa¬ 
thetic touch that may help the 
needy one to a better life. 

Poverty is not a crime as it was 
once thought to be. The poor- 
house of to-day is an attempt to 
give the people who may be so un¬ 
fortunate as to live there a real 
home. Two institutions of this 
kind are located in the city, one on 
Welfare Island and the other in 
the Borough of Richmond. The 
home on Staten Island is made up 
of cottages where old couples may 
live out their lives happily. 


The Care of the Orphan.—The 

same kindness is to be found in 
the care of orphans in the city. 
Many such children are placed in 
private homes to he cared for. 
These homes are paid for such 
care. There are also institutions 
in the country for orphans. Many 
churches of the city maintain 
homes where children are cared 
for. This gives the city an oppor¬ 
tunity to send children to homes 
of the same religion as that of 
their parents. 

Special Classes in the Schools.— 

The public schools give a large 
amount of time to the care of 
feeble or mentally defective chil¬ 
dren. For the underweight, ane¬ 
mic child open-window classes are 
provided. In these classes food is 
provided, and much of the school 
work is conducted in the open air 
in rooms with wide open windows. 
Rest periods are given two or 
three times a day. 

Every pupil has a health card 
record, and examinations are made 
for diseases of the hair, eyes, 
teeth, skin, heart, and throat. 

Children behind in their classes 
because of poor minds are given 
special care in special classes. 
Special institutions are provided 
for children whose minds are so 


82 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


defective that they cannot do reg¬ 
ular school work. One of these 
institutions is located on Randall’s 
Island. Here everything is done 
to enable the patients to become 
useful to themselves and to the 
city. Many who at one time were 
thought hopeless are now taught 
to read and write and learn some 
useful trade. 

Homes and Asylums for All.—Al¬ 
together there were, according to 
late reports, several hundred 
asylums and homes for the dis¬ 
tressed and needy in New York 
City. Some of these homes are 
for the “Insane,” “Aged and 
Indigent Females,” “Incurables,” 
“Blind,” “Aged and Infirm,” 
“Crippled Children,” “Working 
Girls,” “Old Men and Aged 
Couples,” “Aged Women,” and 
“Home for Friendless.” 

For the mother who has lost her 
husband and must support chil¬ 
dren there is a pension provided. 

A Generous City.—Last hut not 


least is the fine work done by some 
of the great daily newspapers in 
collecting funds to care for “The 
Hundred Neediest Cases.” The 
New York Times has conducted 
such a campaign for several years. 
That the citizens of New York are 
generous and want to help the un¬ 
fortunate one is shown by the re¬ 
sult of this collection which is 
purely a freewill offering. Study 
the report below and decide for 
yourself how much times have 
changed since the poor man’s fate 
was a prison cell. 


1912 

1913 

1914 

1915 

1916 

1917 

1918 

1919 

1920 

1921 

1922 

1923 

1924 


$3,630.88 

9,646.36 

15,032.46 

31,819.92 

55,792.45 

62,103.47 

81,097.57 

106,967.14 

111,126.00 

125,011.10 

157,421.08 

177,683.67 

233,333.89 


Questions 

I. Why is it profitable to the city to keep of caring for your health ? 

its citizens well? IV. Why should the city help the dis- 

II. Were you ever in a hospital as a tressed? 

patient? If so, how did the care given you V. Why do people like to be called gen- 
there differ from the way sick people are erous? 

cared for at home? VI. What are some of the best ways 

III. What does your school do by way of avoiding disease? 















OFFENDERS AGAINST THE LAW 


83 


CHAPTER XIII 

Offenders Against the Law 


The Newspaper and Crime.—A 

common complaint among readers 
of certain newspapers is that those 
papers are filled with the stories 
of crimes committed from day to 
day. As a help in studying this 
chapter, take a copy of any of the 
great dailies printed in New York 
City and make a record of the 
stories about crimes. You should 
also bear the fact in mind that 
many crimes never find their way 
to the newspapers. 

Law Breakers.—It has always 
been thus. Some members of so¬ 
ciety disregard the law; they try 
to settle disputes by murder or 
assault; some seek to provide a 
living and wealth besides by steal¬ 
ing; others commit forgery, arson, 
and other crimes. 

It does not seem that we have 
progressed as we should in our re¬ 
spect for the law. Within the last 
few years there has been a wave 
of crime flowing over the country. 
The daylight bandit was at one 
time thought of as a criminal only 
to be found on the western plains, 
where he occasionally held up and 


robbed the lonely traveler or per¬ 
haps the overland stage. Our 
cities are the scenes of robberies 
of this kind every day at the 
present time. 

Punishment for Crime. — Where 
there are so many crimes com¬ 
mitted, some kind of punishment 
must be provided for the offender. 
Prisons for all types of wrongdo¬ 
ers ranging from the truant from 
school to the most hardened crim¬ 
inal are provided in the metropoli¬ 
tan district and the states sur¬ 
rounding it. 



Brown Bros. 

Enforcing speed laws. 




METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


84 

The punishment of different 
crimes has changed a great deal 
since early times. There was a 
time in the life of New York when 
several different crimes were pun¬ 
ishable by death. Now, only mur¬ 
der is punished by executing the 
offender. A very strong move¬ 
ment is under way to change the 
law so no crime can be punished 
by killing the criminal. Many 
states have already passed such a 
law, and have substituted life im¬ 
prisonment for the death penalty. 

Punishment in Early Days.— Less 
than one hundred years ago 
debtors were imprisoned. It is 
recorded that in 1788 nearly 
twelve hundred residents of New 
York, one in every twenty of its 
male population, went to jail for 
debt. It was necessary for the 

Society for the Relief of Dis¬ 
tressed Debtors” to take the mat¬ 
ter in hand before the debtors' 
prison disappeared. 

In early times the whipping 
post, stocks, and the pillory were 
common. All these are a memory 
now. 

Imprisonment in the old-style 
prison meant poor food, a dark, 
damp cell, little or no bedding, 
with vermin everywhere. The 
prisoner's health was undermined, 


his spirit broken, and because he 
was thrown with all sorts of men 
he often came out a hardened 
criminal. 

The Prisons in the Metropolitan 
District.— Just as we have under¬ 
gone changes in other things that 
make life easier to live, we have 
changed in our attitude toward 
the offender against the law. If 
there is any question about the 
sanity of one who commits a crime, 
he is examined by physicians who 
determine whether he is to be held 
responsible. If he is found in¬ 
sane, he is committed to an asylum 
for the insane and given proper 
medical treatment. If he is not 
insane and is 'found guilty, he is 
sent to one of the city or 
state prisons. There are several 
prisons in the metropolitan dis¬ 
trict. In New York City the New 
York County Penitentiary, Wel¬ 
fare Island, receives prisoners 
from the five boroughs. One wing 
is set aside for those sentenced to 
the Workhouse. The Correction 
Hospital (formerly the Work- 
house) on Welfare Island houses 
women sentenced to the Peniten¬ 
tiary and the Workhouse. On 
Biker's Island is the Municipal 
Farm where drug addicts, both 
convicted and self-committed, are 


OFFENDERS AGAINST TEE LAW 


85 


sent. In the Reformatory Prison 
on Hart’s Island are the aged and 
crippled offenders who are unable 
to work; also boys unfit to be as¬ 
signed to the New York City Re¬ 
formatory at New Hampton. Men 
assigned to work in the industries, 
and prisoners with bad cases of tu¬ 
berculosis are consigned to the Re¬ 
formatory Prison. 

Other Prisons.— The New York 
City Reformatory for Male Mis¬ 
demeanants is at New Hamp¬ 
ton, Orange County, New York. 
Felons between the ages of sixteen 
and thirty are sent to this prison. 
Honor camps are maintained at 
Grey court and at the Warwick 
Dairy Farms. The prisoners at 
this institution have whatever lib¬ 
erty their case deserves. All the 
work of ordinary farming is done 
by some of the men and boys. 
Every effort is made to give the in¬ 
mates a chance to make something 
of themselves. Evening schools 
are conducted. Educational pic¬ 
tures are shown and some are en¬ 
couraged to study by taking 
courses by mail. A library of in¬ 
teresting and instructive books is 
available for those who wish to 
read or study. An opportunity is 
given every inmate to learn a 
trade through the work assigned 


to him. Time is allowed each day 
for recreation through games or 
play of some kind. There are 
stores where candies and small 
luxuries may be purchased. All 
prisoners are allowed to receive 
and send mail as they wish with 
few restrictions. Every prisoner 
is furnished a Bible and is given 
an opportunity to worship under 
the direction of a minister of his 
own faith every Sunday. 

Not all prisons are of this type. 
It is called a “model prison,” and 
from the above account you can 
see that it deserves this title. 



Brown Bros. 

The Tombs. 






METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


City Prisons.— There are three 
prisons for the detention of court 
cases in New York City. The 
City Prison (known as the Tombs) 
is in Manhattan. In Brooklyn is 
a City Prison (referred to at 
times as the Raymond Street 
Jail). A third City Prison is lo¬ 
cated in Queens at Long Island 
City. 

No women are imprisoned at the 
Tombs. The Jefferson Market 
Prison, known as the Women’s De¬ 
tention Prison, is used for women 
as is the Tombs for men. 

State Prisons.— Throughout the 
state of New York are prisons of 
various kinds. Most important of 
these are the State Prisons at Au¬ 
burn, Clinton, and Sing Sing at 
Ossining. For lighter offenses a 
number of reformatories are main¬ 
tained for men and women. The 
largest of these are at Elmira, 
Bedford Hills, and Albion. 

“Homes” for Offenders.— A great 
number of “Homes” and “Houses 
of Refuge” are found in New York 
City. Some are for wayward 
girls; some for boys who commit 
minor offenses. Truant schools 
are conducted for habitual truants 
from school. 

In New Jersey provisions are 
made for imprisonment in the 


State Prison at Trenton and the 
Essex County Penitentiary be¬ 
sides a number of reformatories, 
asylums, and correctional institu¬ 
tions. 

The names selected for many of 
the prisons spoken of above give 
us an idea of the change taking 
place in the attitude of the public 
toward prisons and prisoners. 
For example, how much better it 
is to speak of a prison as a Correc¬ 
tion Hospital rather than a Work- 
house. House of Refuge does not 
carry the same meaning as a “Jail 
for Young Women.” It is also 
better to give a common school 
education to young offenders, 
along with military training that 
gives them needful physical exer¬ 
cise, than to throw a boy in jail 
with old offenders and give him 
nothing to do. The Society for 
Reformation of Juvenile Delin¬ 
quents maintains a model reforma¬ 
tory where boys are helped to be¬ 
come useful citizens through edu¬ 
cation and right habits of living 
on Randall’s Island. It is called 
the House of Refuge. 

The Prison Term.— The old style 
sentence of a definite number of 
years in prison varying according 
to the offense has been replaced by 
the indeterminate sentence. By 


87 


OFFENDERS AGAINST THE LAW 


this plan the convicted offender is 
sent to some place of confinement 
for a period of one year to eight¬ 
een months or perhaps from five 
to seven years or some other pe¬ 
riod according to his crime. The 
prisoner knows that the length of 
his sentence under such a scheme 
depends in part upon his conduct. 
Where this plan is in operation, a 
Parole Board reviews the cases 
and determines the time of release 
of the prisoner. After he is pa¬ 
roled, the offender is obliged to 
report to some parole office regu¬ 
larly until he is entitled to papers 
that completely release him. 

By thus placing men and women 
under a good behavior system 
where it pays to he good and there 
is little temptation to do wrong, 
many have been placed on the 
right track and have become good 
citizens after serving their term of 
confinement in prison. 

Prison Reform. — The Mutual 
Welfare League operating in some 
of our prisons should be given 
credit for its splendid work in re¬ 
forming prisoners. This league 
attempts through an honor system 
to make men do what they would 
not do if too closely restrained as 
in the old prison life. After 
prisoners are admitted to prison 


they are given a chance to show 
whether they are worthy of mem¬ 
bership in the league. If they 
prove by their conduct that they 
wish to do right and are worthy of 
trust, they are elected and from 
that time their conduct is judged 
by the league. Fellow prisoners 
act as judges to determine whether 
each prisoner has become trust¬ 
worthy and is entitled to release. 
The testimony of judges and 
others who have occasion to know 
men who have belonged to the 
Mutual Welfare League is that 
they are cured of their bad habits 
of thought and action and seldom 
commit crimes after they gain 
their freedom. 

The Result of Crime.— At the be¬ 
ginning of this chapter it was sug¬ 
gested that you look to the news¬ 
papers for the stories of crime. 
Look again and find what is said 
of the causes of crime. Less is 
said of the result of the crime than 
of it otherwise. The result is most 
important, however. It costs the 
state thousands of dollars each 
year to prosecute criminals. Mil¬ 
lions of dollars have been spent in 
the metropolitan district and the 
states of New York and New Jer¬ 
sey in building and maintaining 
jails and reformatories. Some 


88 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


one suffers for every crime com¬ 
mitted, and the offender pays most 
dearly for his offense. 

With a police force in every city 
to protect the public safety, it 
is the fate of most criminals to be 
caught and imprisoned. 


Crime will not cease as long as 
the thoughtless offender yields to 
the temptation of 4 ‘getting even” 
or obtaining something for noth¬ 
ing without thought of the punish¬ 
ment that is almost sure to over¬ 
take him. 


Questions 


I. Do you believe in capital punishment ? 
Give five reasons for and five against it. 

II. Why should criminals be punished? 

III. Why shouldn’t the debtor be im¬ 
prisoned ? 

IV. What is a “pillory”? 

V. What is a “model” prison? 


VI. What is the difference between re¬ 
forming and punishing a prisoner? Which 
is better? 

VII. If you knew that some friend of 
yours was thinking of committing a crime, 
state three arguments that you would use 
to prevent him. 


CHAPTEK XIV 
Water and Food Supply 


Uses of Water in the City. —Water 
is so plentiful and so easily ob¬ 
tained that the important part 
which it plays in the life of the 
city is not appreciated until we 
think about some of its uses. 
Every household needs it for 
drinking, cooking, cleaning, and 
bathing. If there is a lawn or 
garden, it is often used on them. 
The Street Department uses it to 
wash the streets and carry away 
the waste in the sewers. The Fire 
Department uses a great quantity 
of it. Manufacturing plants that 


have steam power use it in their 
engines. The Park Department 
uses it to water the lawns. A 
great deal of it is used in the Zo¬ 
ological Park for the animals. It 
is used in the summer playgrounds 
for bathing. You may think of 
other uses. 

Water Used in New York. —With 
so many needs, the supply must be 
great, and so it is. New York City 
uses nearly eight hundred million 
gallons daily. Other cities use 
proportionate amounts. Eight 
hundred million gallons of water 


WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


would cover Central Park about 
three feet deep. 

We must add, then, to the neces¬ 
sities of the location favorable for 
a great city besides those spoken 
of on page 9, another advan¬ 
tage, and that is nearness to a 
good water supply. 

A Good Source of Water Supply.— 
What is a good source of water 
supply! In early days it was a 
good place to dig a well. The 
home builder of early days always 
looked for a way to get water for 
his household before he began to 
build. In the country when a 
home is built, a well is drilled or 
dug and a pump installed before 
the family thinks of moving in. 
Some homes in New York City and 
many in the district outside of the 
city to-day are supplied with water 
for the household in this simple 
manner. There was a time in the 
early history of the city when all 
homes had their own well. In 
those days “The Old Oaken 
Bucket ” meant much more to the 
people than it does now. The 
water was drawn from the wells 
by means of a well sweep, a chain 
pump, or a suction pump. A cup 
hung by the well-side, and a trough 
was near by for the animals. A 
man whose well went dry in a dry 


89 

season was always welcomed at his 
neighbor’s well. 

Early City Systems.— As New 

York City grew, the city provided 
wells in some of the important 
streets. It was not until 1800 that 
a company took hold of the water 
supply question and attempted to 
supply water to the residents. The 
first company to do this was the 
Manhattan Company which sunk a 
well at Reade and Center Streets. 
The water was pumped into a res¬ 
ervoir on Chambers Street and 
from there it was carried in 
wooden mains to a portion of the 
city. 

The city grew so fast and the 
water supply was so poor that the 
question of health became a seri¬ 
ous one. They did not know so 
much then as we do now about the 
effect upon the human body of 
drinking impure water; neither 
did they know so well how to care 
for diseases that often come from 
water that has come from an un¬ 
sanitary source. Typhoid fever 
was not an uncommon disease and 
it was often fatal. There were 
even epidemics of cholera, which, 
as a rule, is caused by drinking im¬ 
pure water or eating impure food. 
It was during such an epidemic 
that the plan of getting better 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


90 

water was adopted by tbe city. 
This plan was that of building an 
aqueduct from the Croton River in 
Westchester and Putnam counties 
to the city. This river was thirty- 
eight miles from the then populous 
part of the city, so the plan of 
bringing water from there was 
thought impossible by many. Like 
other great plans that have worked 
out successfully, it was regarded 
at first as a dream. Dreams of 
that kind have resulted in many of 
the wonderful structures and busi¬ 
nesses which make New York one 
of the wonder cities throughout 
the ages. 

The “Old” Croton System.— Work 
commenced on the aqueduct in 
1837, and it was opened for use in 
1842. The water supplied by what 
we now call “The Old Croton 
Aqueduct’’ was stored in a reser¬ 
voir at Forty-second Street and 
Fifth Avenue. This reservoir was 
on what is now the site of the New 
York Public Library. The reser¬ 
voir was removed from there in 
1890. In the meantime another 
reservoir had been built in what 
is now Central Park between 
Seventy-ninth and Eighty-sixth 
streets. This reservoir is still in 
use, and much of the water brought 
to the city through the Old Aque¬ 


duct is distributed to the water 
mains from that center. 

The building of the first large 
aqueduct was difficult in those 
days because there were not the 
conveniences that are to be seen 
anywhere now where excavating 
or building is going on. The dig¬ 
ging, the mixing of the cement, 
and the handling of the heavy 
pipes called for a great deal of 
skilled and unskilled labor. 

Earth embankments were built 
over valleys for the aqueduct; 
hills were tunneled; High Bridge 
over the Harlem River was 
crossed by means of iron pipes, 
one of them plenty large enough 
for a tall man to walk through. 

Still More Water Needed. —As the 
city increased in size more and 
more water was needed. This 
need was met by building “The 
New Croton Aqueduct,” which 
was put into operation in 1891. 
This aqueduct carried the water 
to the Jerome Park Reservoir and 
from there under the Hudson 
River to the reservoir in Central 
Park. 

In addition to the water from 
the Croton Aqueduct the city has 
been supplied with water from 
The Bronx and Bryam watershed. 
These rivers are located in West- 


WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


91 



Brown Bros. 

Ashokan Dam, an important part of the CatskiU water system. 


Chester and Putnam counties. 
These waters were formerly de¬ 
livered into the former Kensico 
Lake and from there were taken to 
the Williamsbridge Reservoir in 
The Bronx. This lake is now a 
part of the Kensico Reservoir, and 
from that point the waters from 
the Bronx and Bryam watersheds 
become a part of the Catskill sup¬ 
ply system. 

The Catskill Water Supply. —The 

new Catskill Mountain supply sys¬ 
tem depends upon two drainage 


areas for its water supply. These 
areas or watersheds lie in the cen¬ 
tral part of the Catskill Mountains 
between eighty-five and one hun¬ 
dred twenty-five miles from New 
York City. The Schoharie water¬ 
shed has an area of 314 square 
miles. Esopus is 357 square miles 
in extent. 

The Schoharie section is con¬ 
nected with the Esopus area by 
means of the Shandaken tunnel 
under the mountain of that name. 
The tunnel is eighteen miles long. 





92 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


The drainage of the Schoharie 
system is naturally toward the 
north, so it is necessary to build a 
dam at Gilboa to turn the waters 
back so they will flow through the 
tunnel into the Esopus watershed 
and from there to the Ashokan 
Reservoir, about fourteen miles 
west of Kingston on the Hudson. 
An immense aqueduct carries the 
water from the Ashokan Reser¬ 
voir to the city of New York. 
From this reservoir to the Silver 
Lake Terminal Reservoir on 
Staten Island is almost a three- 
days ’ journey for the water at the 
rate it flows through the aque¬ 
duct. 

The water is carried under the 
Hudson River by means of a tun¬ 
nel in solid granite rock, at a 
depth of 1,114 feet. This tunnel 
connects the bottom of shafts on 
each side of the river—at Storm 
King Mountain on the west and at 
Breakneck Mountain on the east. 

The Ashokan Reservoir holds 
enough water to cover Manhattan 
Island to a depth of thirty feet. 
The surface of the reservoir when 
it is full is 590 feet above the level 
of the city. This is a great ad¬ 
vantage because it makes it pos¬ 
sible to get the water to the city 
without pumping. 


The Kensico Reservoir, which is 
about thirty miles from New York,, 
contains enough water to supply 
the city several months. Hill 
View Reservoir is located in the 
city of Yonkers just north of New 
York. These reservoirs insure a 
supply of city waters for the city 
if something should go wrong 
at the source of supply. 



Brown Bros . 


Purifying city water at Ashokan Dam. 

A visit to these reservoirs would 
give you an idea of some of the 
methods used to make the city 
water supply fresh, sparkling, 
palatable water that may be drawn 
from any faucet in your home. 

Purifying the Water. —Aerators, 
or large fountain basins, are con¬ 
structed in the reservoirs. From 
these basins hundreds of nozzles 
spurt water into the air where it 





WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


93 


is mixed with pure air, and gases 
and other matters that might 
cause a bad odor or taste in the 
water are removed. After the 
water leaves the Kensico Reser¬ 
voir certain chemicals are put into 
it to destroy all germs that might 
cause disease. 

Carrying the Water to the Homes. 

—Underground tunnels carry 
water from Hill View Reservoir 
to the boroughs of New York City. 
These tunnels vary from three 
feet to fifteen feet in diameter and 
are from 200 to 750 feet below the 
surface of the streets. 

At the present time about half 
of the water used in Manhattan 
and The Bronx comes from the 
Croton supply; the balance comes 
from the Catskill system. 

The Brooklyn System.—For a long 
time the old city of Brooklyn did 
not have a public system of water 
supply. Up to 1859, all the waters 
of that city came from wells and 
cisterns. The first supply from 
outside the city came from the 
Hempstead Valley, when water 
pumped from several wells and 
ponds was conveyed to the city 
through a brick conduit. This 
system was later extended to 
Massapequa, Long Island, and the 
great Milburn and Ridgewood 


pumping stations were con¬ 
structed. These stations pump 
water from over nine hundred 
wells that have been driven in that 
section into the path of under¬ 
ground water that seeps through 
the earth on its way to the ocean 
from the high points of Long 
Island. 

At the present time Brooklyn is 
supplied from the Esopus water¬ 
shed and by the old Brooklyn sys¬ 
tem along with one private water 
company. 

The Water Supply in Queens.— 

Queens Borough is supplied with 
water only in part by the city. 
Several private companies operate 
in different parts of the borough. 
In Richmond most of the water 
comes from the Esopus watershed. 
The balance is supplied from wells. 

The cost of this wonderful water 
supply system runs into millions 
of dollars. The cost of the Cat- 
skill system alone would be suf¬ 
ficient to place a one-million-dol- 
lar building in every block of 
Broadway from the Battery north¬ 
ward for a distance of nearly eight 
miles. 

It takes a small army of em¬ 
ployees to properly care for the 
work in connection with sources 
of supply, distributing, and the 


94 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


quality of the water in the city. 
All this is looked after by the De¬ 
partment of Water Supply, Gas 
and Electricity, under the control 
of a commissioner appointed by 
the Mayor. 

The Bureau of Water Supply is 
responsible for the water supply 
of the city. 

Water Supplied to All.—The citi¬ 
zen and his family, poor and rich 
alike, are supplied with pure, 
wholesome water. What does he 
do in exchange for this service! 
First of all, he pays a fixed charge 
for the amount of water he uses. 
He is not through, however, when 
he pays his water bill. It is esti¬ 
mated that about one-third of the 
Catskill water supply is wasted 
every year through faulty foun¬ 
tains, leaky pipes, and careless¬ 
ness in turning off faucets. This 
waste amounts to one hundred 
million gallons each day, which 
costs three-quarters of a million 
dollars to supply in a year. Some 
one must pay the hill for this care¬ 
lessness. Who pays it! We can 
lower the bill by having leaky fix¬ 
tures repaired. If we notice a fire 
hydrant, or a water main cover 
leaking, we should report it to the 
office of the Water Supply Bureau. 

Food a Necessity.—There are in 


our lives several necessities. We 
need water, food, clothing, shel¬ 
ter, and a source of income to pro¬ 
vide these needs. Let us now con¬ 
sider the next necessity after 
water—food. 

Distributing Food.—A hoy in the 

country, while entertaining a 
friend, said, “Eat all you want; it 
doesn’t cost us anything.” He 
was only partly right. His food 
came directly from his labor. 
There was no question of packing, 
shipping, storing, selling to the 
merchant, and the merchant sell¬ 
ing to the housewife. 

The city dweller’s food travels 
a long road and through many 
hands before it reaches his table. 
Getting the produce from the pro¬ 
ducer to the consumer is called dis¬ 
tribution. Distribution with the 
farmer is simple. He gathers his 
apples from the tree, digs his po¬ 
tatoes from the ground, picks his 
green corn from the stalk, milks 
his own cows, and in many cases 
slaughters his own hogs, cattle, 
and sheep. All but a few of his 
table wants, such as sugar, spices, 
coffee, and a few others, are pro¬ 
duced on his own land. What of 
the city dweller! His milk is wait¬ 
ing in a bottle outside his door 
when he wishes it for breakfast. 


WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


95 


His vegetables must be purchased 
at the grocery. The bakery sup¬ 
plies his bread. In fact, all his 
food must come from a distance. 
When as many people as are in 
New York must be supplied from 
sources far and near, the food 
problem becomes a great question. 
In addition to the six million per¬ 
manent residents of the city, there 
are about one million commuters 
and three hundred and fifty thou¬ 
sand visitors to the city who must 
be fed every day. 

This great family’s table is sup¬ 
plied directly by over 15,000 res¬ 
taurants, 5,000 bakeries, 7,000 
fruit and vegetable stores, 1,200 
retail butchers, 19,000 grocery 
stores, 4,500 delicatessen stores, 
7,500 pushcarts, and a host of 
other dealers such as hucksters, 
venders, and small-stand mer¬ 
chants. 

From ten to fifteen thousand 
carloads, of foodstuffs enter the 
city every week. This food comes 
from all over the globe. There are 
people from all over the world in 
the city and they get the food that 
they care for most. 

It is difficult to tell the whole 
story of this immense food supply 
because the figures are so large 
that it is hardly possible even to 


imagine the quantities represented 
by them. For example, the milk 
used daily if placed in quart bot¬ 
tles side by side would extend one 
hundred twenty miles. An auto¬ 
mobile going twenty miles per 
hour would require six hours to 
pass them. This milk comes from 
the states of New York, New Jer¬ 
sey, Connecticut, Vermont, Mas¬ 
sachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New 
Hampshire, and from other points 
a considerable distance from the 
city. Canada supplies the city with 
a large quantity of milk. Many 
consumers buy it in large cans. 

Over six thousand delivery 
wagons are used to deliver this 
milk to the homes. Several 
thousand dealers also sell milk in 
their stores. 

The bread consumed every day 
in New York would cover Union 
Square five loaves deep. There 
would be one and a. quarter mil¬ 
lion loaves of it in the pile. 

Eggs from many of the states 
in the Union and from Canada, 
Denmark, China, Argentine, Aus¬ 
tralia, and other parts of the world 
come to New York at the rate of 
nine millions a day. 

Food Used in New York.—The 
table (p. 96) will tell the story in 
a brief manner of the quantity of 


96 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


some of the foods that enter the 
city of New York each month. 

We have all seen long freight 
trains, but none of ns can well im¬ 
agine a train eighty-five miles long 
which would be required if one 
train could be used to bring the 
food to the city each week. 

QUANTITIES OF FOOD ARRIVING IN 

NEW YORK IN DECEMBER, 1923 

Fruits,. 4112 cars. 123,360,000 pounds 

Vegetables, 4245 cars. 127,350,000 pounds 

Butter . 15,388,730 pounds 

Cheese . 2,731,390 pounds 

Eggs . 271,944 cases 

Dressed Poultry. 27,288,539 pounds 

Live Poultry . 20,995,000 pounds 

Fresh Beef. 124,832,445 pounds 

Canned Meats and 

Provisions . 131,566,368 pounds 

Some of the largest food items 
are not included in this table. 
These are flour and grain prod¬ 
ucts, fish, sugar, and many other 
important foods which are con¬ 
sumed in large quantities. 

The Daily Food Bill.—Most of us 
buy our food each day. Perhaps 
we do not think of all the other 
people who are marketing at the 
same time. Thousands of small 
sales make large totals. Study 
the daily food bill above that 
Father Knickerbocker is respon¬ 
sible for: 


Milk . 


Bread . 


Eggs . 

500,000 dozen 

Butter . 

313,000 pounds 

White Potatoes. 


Sweet Potatoes. 


Melons. 

135,183 

Apples. 

882,493 pounds 

Grapes . 

395,411 pounds 

Bananas . 

40,000 bunches 

Onions. 

219,945 pounds 

Peaches . 

188,712 pounds 

Peas . 

18,140 pounds 

Tomatoes. 

152,000 pounds 

Cabbages . 

180,800 pounds 

Cheese . 

165,000 pounds 

Meat . 

4,000,000 pounds 

Poultry . 

800,000 pounds 


The production of so much food 
is a problem by itself, but that side 
of the question is not of chief con¬ 
cern to the city dweller. He is 
concerned in the manner in which 
it is delivered to his table. 

Waste of Food.—It is estimated 
that half of the food and vege¬ 
tables sent to the metropolitan 
markets spoils before it can be 
marketed in the cities. About ten 
million pounds of food is con¬ 
demned by the Department of 
Health in New York each year. 
This suggests many questions. 

Certain foods from distant 
places must be shipped in refriger¬ 
ator cars in the summer and heat 
must be provided in the winter. If 




























WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


97 


the temperature is not just right, 
the fruit, vegetables, eggs, and 
other perishable foods may not ar¬ 
rive in good condition. If they ar¬ 
rive all right and are not delivered 
quickly to the retailers, decay may 
set in, and then they are con¬ 
demned by the Health Depart¬ 
ment. 

The City Market.—There must be 
wholesale distributing centers in 
the city where the retail dealers 
may buy. These markets are 
many in number and range from 
bad to good in construction and 
management. 

Jobbers receive foodstuffs at 
the wholesale markets by truck 
from trains and piers and resell to 
the retailers. It would be a good 
plan if housewives could con¬ 
veniently visit the large markets 
and buy directly from the jobbers. 
Many profits made by extra deal¬ 
ers would be cut from the cost of 
foods if this plan could be fol¬ 
lowed. The city is so large and 
markets are so few that this is 
impossible, however. 

The Department of Public Mar¬ 
kets with a commissioner ap¬ 
pointed by the Mayor is charged 
with the duty of arranging better 
market conditions in New York. 

The Bureau of Distribution 


seeks to find better ways of dis¬ 
tributing food so there will not be 
so much waste. 

The Bureau of Production tries 
to get a surplus of food in New 
York. 

The Bureau of Physical Plants 
sends out inspectors to see that the 
people handling and making food¬ 
stuffs do so properly. 

Housewives are taught to do 
marketing in a better way by the 
Bureau of Information. A plan 
is under way to establish city- 
owned wholesale markets where 
food may be delivered and stored 
properly so it will not spoil by 
decay, freezing, or exposure to the 
weather as it does in so many of 
the poorly constructed wholesale 
markets in the city to-day. (See 
Report of Commissioner of Pub¬ 
lic Markets in New York City, 
1924.) 

Purity of Foods.—Another ques¬ 
tion that concerns all of us is the 
purity of our food. Consider the 
most important of all foods, milk. 
We receive our milk in a bottle. 
One bottle looks much like another, 
but one may be pure and the other 
so impure that it would cause dis¬ 
ease and death if used as food. 
Some of the worst diseases are 
caused by germs that breed in im- 


98 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


pure milk; typhoid fever is one of 
the worst of these. 

All milk delivered in the metro¬ 
politan district is inspected and 
tested for dangerous disease 
germs. It is pasteurized, heated 
to a high temperature to kill all 
germs, and then it is bottled in the 
most sanitary manner. All who 
handle milk from the time it comes 
from the cow to the time it is 
crated for shipment must be clean. 
All must be healthy men and 
women so they will not spread dis¬ 
ease by coming in contact with the 
milk. 

Milk is graded into A, B, and C 
grades. A Grade raw milk is pure, 
but it must be used soon after de¬ 
livery or it will sour. 

Care should be taken in buying 
any milk from large cans. Unless 
it is protected from all dirt and 
dust it is likely 1<o be very un¬ 
healthful. 

A great quantity of baked goods 
are used in city homes. Most of 
the baking is done in large plants. 
Inspectors from the Board of 
Health regularly inspect all bak¬ 
eries to see that clean utensils are 
used. They see that the baked 
goods are handled by clean, 
healthy persons. The baker is 
compelled to use clean wrappers 


for his product. He is obliged to 
use good flour and other ingredi¬ 
ents in his bread and pastries. 

All slaughter houses are under 
control of the Bureau of Animal 
Industry of the United States. 
“Uncle Sam” helps the city to get 
clean, wholesome meats. Look for 
the blue stamp of the inspectors 
the next time you visit a butcher 
shop. It is a serious crime for any 
dealer to attempt to preserve meat 
in a manner contrary to law. An 
up-to-date butcher shop is the best 
example of good housekeeping 
found in the city. Refrigerators 
are clean and free from moisture 
and bad odors. All woodwork is 
painted or whitewashed. Chop¬ 
ping blocks are scraped daily. 
Knives and choppers are washed 
often. The floor is covered with 
fresh sawdust daily. All this is a 
part of the plan to keep us well by 
giving us good food. 

The fruit and vegetable inspec¬ 
tors must be watchful for moldy 
fruits and decaying vegetables.. 
It does not take many hours for 
certain fruits and green stuff to 
spoil after they are exposed to the 
air. Oftentimes carloads of such 
foods are ordered destroyed be¬ 
fore they ever get to the markets- 
A part of such waste is due to the 


WATER AND FOOD SUPPLY 


99 


poor facilities that we still have 
for moving cars after they arrive 
in New Jersey. Plans for the 
future call for a quicker movement 
of freight that is liable to spoil if 
delayed long. 

The merchant should keep all 
fruit covered so flies may not get 
to it. 

Cold Storage of Foods.—The plan 
of keeping certain foods in cold 
storage has done much to solve the 
food question for cities. Meats, 



Brown Bros. 

Food in cold storage. 


eggs, butter, cheese, some fruits, 
and many vegetables can be put 
into cold storage plants at the sea¬ 
son when they are plentiful and 
marketed at another season of the 
year. Many things may be en¬ 


joyed out of their regular season 
by this plan at a price that would 
otherwise be impossible for all ex¬ 
cept the wealthy. 

Canned Food.—The shelves full 
of canned fruits, vegetables, fish, 
and meats to be found in every 
grocery store represent another 
plan of preserving food that is 
necessary where large numbers 
are to be fed with food produced 
at a distance. The tin can and 
glass jar tightly sealed make many 
kinds of foods easily obtainable at 
all seasons of the year. 

Pure Food and Drug Law.—The 
demand for various kinds of pre¬ 
served meats, fruits, vegetables, 
and other foods has tempted 
many dishonest men to put a 
poor quality of food on the mar¬ 
ket. Spoiled foods may be made 
to appear good by treating with 
certain chemicals. This was done 
so much that in 1906 a “pure 
food and drug” law was passed. 
By this law it became necessary to 
label all foods and drugs so that 
the buyer may know exactly what 
he is buying. This law has 
stopped many frauds and has done 
much to insure better health. 
There is no surer way of getting 
disease than by eating impure 
food of any kind. 





100 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Honest Measure.—All this has 
heen done by way of getting a 
supply of food available for all of 
us. Another important matter 
must be attended to, however, if 
our buying is to be satisfactory. 
We must get what we pay for. To 
insure this, there is in New York 
and all of the other large cities in 
the metropolitan district a Bureau 
of Weights and Measures. Were 
it not for such a bureau, butter 
would be sold in packages that 
weigh two or three ounces without 
deducting the weight of the pack¬ 
age. Berries would be sold in bas¬ 
kets with raised bottoms. Other 
fruits would be measured in too 
small measures. “ Short-weight ” 
scales would be used. False scales 


and dishonest measures found in 
New York are taken to sea and 
thrown overboard. They are de¬ 
stroyed in some manner in all 
cities. Everybody should be on 
the lookout for dishonest dealings 
and report such dealers to the 
proper bureau. 

It is estimated that forty-three 
cents out of every dollar earned 
in the average family is spent for 
food. The total food bill in New 
York City is about four million 
dollars a day. It should be every¬ 
body’s business to help the city in 
every way possible to provide 
enough pure food at reasonable 
prices. We should surely be inter¬ 
ested in a matter where our health 
and most of our money is concerned. 


Questions 


I. Without a good water supply there 
could be no city. Explain. 

II. What are the dangers of impure 
water ? 

III. Give three ways in which you can 
help to stop the waste of city water. Who 
pays for wasted water? 

IV. Would you rather live on a farm 
or in the city? Why? 


V. The farmer oftentimes gets a few 
cents for a basket of tomatoes that sell for 
fifteen or twenty cents a pound in the City 
Market. What are some of the reasons for 
high prices asked for foods? 

VI. What is the value of cold storage? 

VII. Why should such food as vegetables 
be sold by the pound instead of by meas¬ 
ure? 


LIGHTING THE CITY 


101 


CHAPTER XV 
Lighting the City 


The White Way.—New York of 
to-day becomes a ‘ 1 City of Light’ 9 
at night. Its great 4 ‘White Way” 
shines from the glow of thousands 
of brilliant lights. With its many 
street lights and illuminated signs 
of all descriptions it presents a 
sight unlike any other in the world. 

When nightfall comes one can 
stand on Broadway and get an im¬ 
pression never to be forgotten of 
hundreds of kinds of merchandise 
that he is urged to buy, of plays 
that are attractive, and of business 
firms that invite his patronage. 

Lighting in Early Times.—Sup¬ 
pose we journey back to the days 
of our grandfathers. Indeed, it 
was in the days of some of our 
fathers when New York and other 
cities ushered in the close of day 
by lighting the tallow candle. 
Many a newspaper of those days 
was spattered with tallow or wax 
as the reader held the candle in 
one hand while he turned the 
pages of his paper with the other. 

The evening meal was often 
served with a fluttering candle in 
the middle of the table. Most of 



Brown Bros. 


Broadway at night. The “White Way.’’ 

the room was in darkness. If 
there was need of a light in an¬ 
other room, oftentimes the family 
sat in darkness until the good 
housewife returned with the 
candle. 

Street Lighting in 1689.—It was 

difficult enough to light the home 
in early days. To light the streets 




METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


102 

was a serious problem indeed. In 
1689 a law was passed in New 
York requiring the citizen of every 
seventh house to hang out a light 
on the end of a pole. Such lights, 
no more than a tiny flame, served 
to direct the traveler on his way, 
but they really did not light the 
streets so any one could feel safe 
from the lurking highwayman who 
might lie waiting in the dark 
shadows. 

Better Lights Needed.—As New 

York increased in size, it was 
more and more necessary to make 
the night time safe for its citizens. 
Street lamps were installed and 
improvements were made in means 
of lighting along with other in¬ 
novations in city life. The use 
of electricity for lighting purposes 
in the streets and home marks an 
important stage in the history of 
the comfort and safety of man¬ 
kind. The kerosene oil lamp, 
which succeeded the tallow candle 
and the whale oil lamps, was 
greeted by the householder as a 
wonder of the age. The whole 
family could actually sit around 
the evening table and read, sew, or 
play games—all by the use of the 
lamp that burned oil by means of a 
cotton wick, a simple burner, and 
a glass chimney which served to 


keep the flame from being blown 
out by currents of air. This type 
of lamp was used in New York and 
is still used in many small towns 
to light the streets. The arc light 
on the street and the incandescent 
bulb in the home quickly replaced 
kerosene lamps wherever an elec¬ 
tric current was available. 

It is so easy to press a button 
and flood a room with light that we 
are likely to take home lighting for 
granted. A small monthly bill is 
the only reminder that we have of 
a lighting problem in the home. If 
we do not study our tax bill, the 
street lighting becomes something 
like the expected sunrise of the 
morrow. 

Let us study some of the prob¬ 
lems that need to be solved before 
our homes and our city streets can 
be lighted so well that we get 
about at night as easily as we do 
by day. 

In New York City the Bureau of 
Gas and Electricity has general 
supervision of the lighting of the 
streets, homes, public buildings, 
and business places. 

Street and Park Lighting.—The 
street and park lighting of our 
cities is an important matter for 
all of us. A large share of 
crimes is committed at night. 


LIGHTING THE CITY 


103 


Were it not for the brightly 
lighted streets, it would not be 
safe in some parts of the city at 
night. 

Every town of any size has its 
“white way.” The use of elec¬ 
tricity makes it easy to turn night 
into day. On the principal streets 
the owners of business places join 
with the city in furnishing an extra 
quantity of light. This is good 
for the people who use the streets, 
and it is also a good advertisement 
for the business men who own 
businesses along the thorough¬ 
fare. 

The lights used to-day to light 
the streets are various types of 
electric lamps. In some of the 
quiet streets gas is still used. 
Many gas lamps are found in 
parks, but they are being rapidly 
replaced with electric lamps. 

The Bureau of Gas and Elec¬ 
tricity looks after removal of 
aerial wires used for lighting and 
the replacing of them with wires 
under the streets. It also installs 
fire alarm signal lamps operated 
from a central station. 

Lights and Traffic.—Every driver 
of an automobile as well as every 
pedestrian has had occasion to be 
thankful for the police traffic sig¬ 
nal lights. They are used on a 


small scale in many sections of 
New York and elsewhere. The 
most complete system of this kind 
is to be found on Fifth Avenue. A 
beautifully designed series of tow¬ 
ers are set in the middle of that 
avenue from Thirty-fourth to 
Fifty-seventh streets. Through 
the use of different colored lamps 
in these towers the traffic is easily 
regulated. It is easier to see a 
tower light a block or more on a 
densely crowded street than it is 
to see a policeman on the street or 
to hear his whistle. 

All driveways and bridges are 
lighted according to plans made 
by the bureau mentioned above. 
This bureau also looks after the 
inspection of electric wiring for 
light, heat, or power in all build¬ 
ings both public and private. It 
tests all gas to see whether it is of 
the proper pressure, purity, and 
lighting qualities. 

All who wish to become elec¬ 
tricians or motion-picture opera¬ 
tors must secure their licenses 
through this bureau. 

Lighting and heating is a prob¬ 
lem that is very near to our home 
interests. The heating of homes 
is largely an affair for each house¬ 
holder to attend to. As to lights, 
we have gone far from the candle 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


104 

or lamp of other days. Enough 
has been told to show the great 
city problems that must be dealt 
with before we can have a well- 
lighted home or be sure of our 
safety on the streets after night¬ 
fall. 

Home Comforts and Lights.—How 

much more is added to the com¬ 
fort of the home by good heat and 
light! A cheerful tire and a good 
light do much to make us forget 
the daily toil. We can read, study, 
or entertain friends far more eas¬ 
ily than our fathers could. If we 
visit the theater, the lighting of 
the stage adds a great deal to the 
play or opera. Our public build¬ 
ings with immense rooms could 
not be lighted with oil lamps and 
only poorly lighted with gas, but 
they may be brilliantly lighted 
through the use of electricity. 

A great deal remains to be done. 
Many tires are caused by defec¬ 
tive wires and wiring. Lives are 


lost by exposed “live wires’’ on 
the streets. Homes are not lighted 
as well as they might be, nor are 
the lamps and fixtures always se¬ 
lected and placed with the idea 
that beauty counts in home light¬ 
ing. There is at present a move¬ 
ment throughout the land toward 
the securing of “Better Lighted 
Homes. ’’ How can we help in this 
movement ? 

The Old Lamp and the New.—The 

old type of gas lamp with its 
many arched and curved parts 
looks clumsy to us to-day. The 
first electric arc lamps were not 
well placed nor designed to please 
the eye. Beautiful as well as 
serviceable lamps are being placed 
on the streets and avenues of New 
York and other cities to-day. 
Many of the smaller cities, par¬ 
ticularly along the New Jersey 
shore, are beautifully lighted with 
lamps that are really artistic in 
design. 


Questions 

I. What were the disadvantages of early III. Imagine all lights removed from 

means of lighting? city streets. What would be the result? 

II. How do good lights help a home? IV. Describe or draw some of the street 

How is your home lighted? lights that you think are well designed. 


COMMUNICATION 


105 


CHAPTER XYI 
Communication 


The Messenger Long Ago and Now. 

—There was a time in the history 
of the City of New York when if 
a man at the Battery had business 
to transact with a man where the 
City Hall now stands, he was 
obliged to spend an hour or so 
journeying to that man’s place of 
business. A few errands of this 
kind would take up all the time of 
the working day. The city was 
small in those days and men could 
get from place to place. What of 
the present? Suppose a business 
man at Coney Island was obliged 
to see a man in the northern end 
of The Bronx. With all the con¬ 
veniences that the city offers to¬ 
day, it would take him several 
hours to make the trip and return 
home. 

The City at Every Desk.—We 

do not walk, take a carriage, nor 
even the trolley or subway if we 
wish to talk business with a man 
in another part of the city to-day. 
We telephone. The whole city is 
“at a man’s desk.” A great city 
with all its busy life would not be 
possible without the telephone. 


The business man does much of 
his business over it. The house¬ 
keeper does her buying; the police 
keep in touch with each other; doc¬ 
tors are within reach of the home; 
the whole city is linked together 
through the telephone. The long¬ 
distance telephone makes it easy 
for the man in New York to talk to 
his business friend in Chicago or 
other distant cities. 



Brown Bros. 


The New York City Post Office. 

If the business is such that it 
cannot be done over the telephone, 
the United States postal service is 



METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


106 

ready to carry letters everywhere. 
Small packages of merchandise 
are carried by parcel post at a 
small cost. If it is to be insured, 
a very small fee will pay for the 



Brown Bros. 


Loading the air mail car. 

tP 

insurance of the parcel. A ten- 
cent special delivery stamp at¬ 
tached to a letter insures its de¬ 
livery as soon as it reaches the 
post office to which it is sent. The 
air-mail service delivers the New 
York letter in San Francisco in 
thirty-six hours. 

A visit to the Stock Exchange 
where thousands of business trans¬ 
actions are made every day will 
show you one of the many uses 
that the telegraph is put to in busi¬ 
ness. Hundreds of instruments 


fill the air with a constant clicking. 
The whole country knows within a 
few hours every trade that has 
been made in the Stock Exchange 
during the day. As the telephone 
links up the different parts of the 
city, so the telegraph unites all the 
people of the country. 

The ocean cable shortens the 
time of sending messages across 
the ocean to a few seconds. The 
whole world is as easy to reach as 
our next-door neighbor. 

The telephone and telegraph 
have both been improved through 
the inventions of Guglielmo Mar¬ 
coni. His device, whereby we are 
able to send messages without 
wires or cables, makes it possible 
to reach the distressed ship at sea 
and to send messages to any place 
in the world. 

Where messages are to he deliv¬ 
ered quickly or the distance is not 
great, messengers are employed. 
There are thousands of messenger 
hoys employed in the city, and 
they render a very important 
service in the city’s business. 

Broadcasting by Radio.—In the 
last campaign for President of the 
United States, the candidates were 
able to speak to millions of people 
at one time by use of the radio. 

The arctic explorer is able to 



COMMUNICATION 


107 



Broivn Bros. 


The municipal broadcasting station, WNYC. 

hear the voices from home no mat¬ 
ter where he may be. 

The Newspaper.—As important 
in many ways and more important 
in some ways than all these means 
of communication is the news¬ 
paper. News stands are every¬ 
where, and every one seems to be 


reading a newspaper when he has 
a leisure moment. The life of the 
city, state, nation, and world is 
recorded in the newspaper. 

The last Federal Census records 
3,316 printing and publishing 
establishments in New York City. 
Many of these publications are 
journals devoted to special trades. 
Some are story magazines. In 
fact there is a magazine or news¬ 
paper in whatever field a man may 
be interested. The leading daily 
newspapers to be found on every 
news stand are: Evening Jour¬ 
nal, Evening Post , New York 
Herald and Tribune, Journal of 
Commerce , New York American, 
New York Times , New York 
World (morning and evening) and 
New York Sun. 

The best way to find out the 
value of these means of helping 
the citizens of New York to know 
his neighbors is to imagine a day 
spent in the city without any of 
the conveniences that we have told 
you about in this chapter. 


Questions 

I. Explain how the whole city is “at a III. Why is the newspaper a necessity? 
man’s desk.” IV. Why should you read the news- 

U. Of what value is the radio? paper? 




108 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


CHAPTER XVII 

Transportation 


A View of the City’s Business.— 

Take a trip to the top of the tallest 
building in New York on some 
clear day and look around over the 
city and harbor of one of the bus¬ 
iest ports in the world. The 
Hudson and East rivers are cov¬ 
ered with crafts of all kinds. Some 
great liners are discharging pas¬ 
sengers; others are being loaded 
with freight for the worlds trade. 
There is wheat from the western 
prairies, oil from Texas, machin¬ 
ery for the farms of the Old 
World, typewriters for Africa, 
phonographs for India, Hun¬ 
dreds of articles from the manu¬ 
facturing plants all over the 
United States are brought to New 
York Harbor for shipment. The 
vessels that carry these products 
away brought shiploads of pro¬ 
duce from their home ports. 

More than two hundred ocean- 
steamship companies operate to 
foreign ports from New York. 
These lines connect the city with 
Europe, Central America, East 
and West coast of Africa, Aus¬ 
tralia, New Zealand; in fact, every 


nook and corner of the world sends 
something to New York. 

Besides the foreign trade, there 
are about sixty regular steamship 
lines that carry on coastwise and 
river trade with different parts of 
the United States. Barge lines 
carry freight to Philadelphia and 
Baltimore. Eight boat lines oper¬ 
ate on the Hudson River. Two 
regular canal lines also operate by 
way of Albany and the New York 
State Barge Canal line to Buffalo 
and points on the Great Lakes in 
the Middle West. 

Extent of the Waterfront.—It 
takes a great many piers and 
docks to care for so much trade, 
but the port of New York has 771 
miles of waterfront. Of this ex¬ 
tent 341 miles is improved for 
shipping. So great is the extent 
of the harbor that it takes two full 
business days, steaming rapidly, 
merely to view the entire shore 
line. To cover in a ten-knot vessel 
all the ins and outs along the 
ocean, sound, bays, and rivers of 
the waterfront would require eight 
days. 


Newark and Environs 

Showing 

RAILROADS SERVING THE DISTRICT 



Courtesy Russell Sage Foundation. 


109 







































110 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



One of the railroad yards in Jersey City. 


Carriers for Freight.— Every im¬ 
portant railroad in the United 
States serves New York either by 
its own railroads or by coastwise 
traffic from some port. 

Hundreds of automobile trucks 
haul freight from nearby places 
to the city. So numerous are these 
trucks that the care of them on the 
much traveled highways is be¬ 
coming a serious question. These 
trucks bring vegetables to the city 
from the nearby truck farms, silks 
from Paterson, worsteds from 
Passaic, and all sorts of merchan¬ 
dise from other cities. 


Bridges in New York.— From 
your sight-seeing tower you can 
see the great bridges that have 
been built between Manhattan Is¬ 
land and the other boroughs. Be¬ 
fore these bridges, the only means 
of passage across the river was 
by ferryboat, an agreeable way 
to travel if you have the time and 
the crowds are not too large, but 
altogether too slow and too few 
for the demands of to-day. 

The first great bridge built in 
New York City was the Brooklyn 
Bridge. This bridge was com¬ 
menced in 1870, and opened for 










TRANSPORTATION 


111 



Courtesy Fairchild’s Aerial Corporation. 

Manhattan Island. The East River bridges are shown in this picture. 


traffic in 1883. Other bridges 
across the East River are the Wil¬ 
liamsburg Bridge, completed in 
1903, the Queensboro Bridge 
opened in 1909, and the Manhattan 
Bridge opened in 1909. These 
bridges along with thirty-eight 


others are under the control of 
the Department of Plants and 
Structures. There are several 
other bridges in the city owned 
privately. The most notable of 
these is Hell Gate Bridge across 
the East River, built and owned 





112 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


Hell Gate "bridge. One of the great "bridges 
of New York City. 

jointly by the Pennsylvania and 
the New York, New Haven, and 
Hartford railroads. 

Tunnels Under the Rivers.— As 
important as the bridges are the 
tunnels under the rivers. At 
present there are fourteen of these 
tunnel systems in operation in and 
about New York City. The vast 
number of people carried on the 
trains daily in these tunnels is 
proof of their necessity. Other 
tunnels are under construction. 
One is to connect Staten Island 
with Brooklyn. Another of great 
importance is the New York-New 
Jersey Vehicular Tunnel. This 
tunnel is a double one, with two 
openings in New York and two 
in New Jersey. The picture 


shows the plan of the tunnel. A 
quotation from the World Al¬ 
manac of 1923 shows what this 
tunnel will mean to the city: 

QUICK TRANSIT FOR FOOD 
SUPPLIES 

Among the advantages which the tunnel 
will afford will be the quick and certain 
transportation of merchandise, foodstuffs, 
and coal from the mainland direct to its 
final destination in Manhattan, The Bronx, 
and Long" Island, unhindered by climate or 
other conditions. In the item of coal alone, 
the entire cost of the tunnel could have been 
defrayed out of any one of a dozen day’s 
losses in January, 1918, due to the inability 
to move the coal barges across the river, not 
to mention the deaths, illness, and physical 
suffering resulting from the coal famine. 

Milk and produce wagons or trucks com¬ 
ing from the New York counties adjoining 
the New Jersey line could drive directly 
into the city and deliver their product with 
certainty many hours earlier than is now 
possible. Outgoing freight deliveries could 
also be made more efficiently and in larger 
volume than is now possible by the present 
lighterage system. This would do away 
with the necessity of using valuable water¬ 
front property for railroad piers, floats, 
and bridges on both the Manhattan and 
Jersey shores. 

Finally, the most important question of 
time in transit would be solved for all 
classes of freight or passenger-carrying 
vehicles at no increase in ferry cost. At 
present, owing to the crowded conditions 
at certain hours, a truck or car is forced to 
wait in line, sometimes for several hours, 




TRANSPORTATION 


113 



before it can be driven aboard tbe ferry, 
whereas with the tunnel proposed, and its 
wide plazas at each end, there would not 
be the slightest delay or congestion at any 
time. 

Travel in the City of New York.— 

Less than one hundred years ago 
the only means of getting from 
place to place in New York besides 
walking or carriage was the stage 


line that opened between Bowling 
Green and Bleecker Street in 
1830. In 1832 the first horse rail¬ 
road in the world started on 
Fourth Avenue. The first at¬ 
tempt at rapid transit was the 
elevated railroad opened in 1867 
between Battery Place and Thir¬ 
teenth Street. Small locomotives 
were used to haul the cars. Since 






























114 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


An early railway train on exhibition in the 
Grand Central station. 

that time changes have come rap¬ 
idly. There are now 880 miles of 
subway, surface, and elevated rail¬ 
way lines in the city. Many of 
these lines are two-, three-, or 
four-track systems. Many miles 
of new lines are being added each 
year. 

New York City offers many 
difficulties when it comes to carry¬ 
ing the crowds that wish to travel. 
In the southern end of Manhattan 
Island are many of the great busi¬ 
ness places employing thousands 
of men and women. Thirteen 
thousand persons find employ¬ 
ment in the Woolworth Building 
alone, as many as the entire 
population of a small city. Thou¬ 
sands of these employees either 


live in the northern end of Man¬ 
hattan Island or some of the other 
boroughs or in New Jersey. All 
must travel a considerable dis¬ 
tance each morning and evening. 
Again, nearly all of the theaters 
are around the Forty-second 
Street region. Forty-four of these 
theaters with seats for 55,911 
people are within a circle two 
thousand feet across. Such con¬ 
ditions cause great numbers to 
crowd the subways and other lines 
in the late afternoon and evening. 

In a city like Chicago, a resident 
away from the center of the city 
may go directly to the heart of the 
city from his home. Manhattan 



Brown Bros. 


The lower train level of the Pennsylvania 
station. 





TRANSPORTATION 


115 



Brown Bros. 


An electric locomotive taking a train out 
of the city. 

Island is long and narrow with but 
a few gateways at each end. Get¬ 
ting the people in and out of Man¬ 
hattan has been likened to pouring 
water into a small-necked bottle. 
Getting them home again is like 
emptying the bottle, a slow process 
because there is but one way to 
get out. 

Elevated and Subway Lines.— 

There are four important elevated 
lines running north and south the 
entire length of Manhattan—the 
Second Avenue, Third Avenue, 
Sixth Avenue and Ninth Avenue 
elevated lines. The first subway 
was opened for use in 1904. The 
Rapid Transit Subway now has 
two important systems—the Lex¬ 


ington Avenue line on the east side 
and the Seventh Avenue line on the 
west side of the Borough of Man¬ 
hattan. These two lines run north 
and south the entire length of 
Manhattan, extending into Brook¬ 
lyn and also The Bronx. In addi¬ 
tion, the Brooklyn Rapid Transit 
Company operates a subway line 
which links up Brooklyn and Man¬ 
hattan by a route extending under 
the East River to the Battery, 
running north to Fifty-ninth 



Brown Bros. 


A double deck elevated line. 

Street and then across the East 
River to Long Island City. 

One must study the maps of the 
subway, surface, and elevated 
lines to get an idea of the many 
different routes. 





116 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 

Tive methods of transportation to he seen near the Hudson Terminal building. 


The control and ownership of 
the transit lines seem to be the 
cause of a never-ending dispute. 
The subways and elevated are in 
part publicly and in part privately 
owned; that is, they were built by 
funds supplied both by the city 


and by private companies. They 
are operated entirely by private 
companies. The street-car lines 
are owned and operated entirely 
by private companies. Those op¬ 
posed to the private ownership 
argue that more, better, and 








TRANSPORTATION 


117 



ROUTE3 OF nr HE- 

Interdohough Rapid Transit Company. 




cheaper service could be given by 
the city if it owned the lines and 
did not attempt to run the business 
at a profit. It is pointed out by 
the private owners, however, that 
in many cases public ownership 
of such properties has resulted in 
poor service and waste of money. 

Motor Passenger Vehicles.— In 
addition to the traffic lines oper¬ 
ated by electricity like the car 
lines, there are the omnibuses. 
Some of these are owned by the 
city. The most important system, 
however, is the ten routes main¬ 
tained by the Fifth Avenue Coach 
Corporation. 


Last, but not least, is the taxi 
that proves so convenient when we 
are in a hurry or are caught out in 
a storm. There are several cor¬ 
porations that control fleets of 
taxicabs always ready to serve 
the traveler. The fare is more than 
on the street car, but the conven¬ 
ience makes up for the extra cost. 

The Streets of the City. —Many of 
us spend some of our time in the 
city walking on the streets. Let us 
find out about the system, care, 
and use of the* streets that we use 
so much. 

There are in the entire city 4,627 
miles of streets. This is about 
















118 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


one and one-half times the distance 
between New York and San Fran¬ 
cisco. There are 2,295 miles of 
these streets that are paved. 

The system of streets in Man¬ 
hattan was laid out in 1807. The 
“Avenues’’ run north and south 
and the “Streets” east and west. 
However, Fifth Avenue was first 
called “Middle Road,” and every¬ 
thing east of it was East and 
everything west of it was West. 
The same plan is followed to-day, 
except that Middle Road is now 
Fifth Avenue. 

It is necessary to have good 
streets in order to have a progres¬ 
sive city. The sidewalks should 
be well made and wide enough to 
take care of all pedestrians. The 
pavement must be of a good qual¬ 
ity to stand the heavy traffic. It 
should be of a kind suitable for 
the type of traffic that the street 
is used for. Asphalt is a good 
pavement for streets to be used 
for automobiles, because it is 
smooth. It is good for congested 
districts where there are great 
numbers of people and an unusual 
amount of dirt and rubbish be¬ 
cause it is easily cleaned. In the 
districts where there is heavy traf¬ 
fic, granite blocks are best. They 
stand much wear and do not get 


so slippery in wet weather as the 
asphalt. Wooden blocks are used 
where a quiet street is desired. 
Macadam is used in many parts 
of the city where there is not much 
traffic. It is the cheapest pave¬ 
ment and may be used in sparsely 
settled districts. The pavement in 
a street is regarded as an improve¬ 
ment to the property along that 
street and is paid for by special 
tax assessments on the property 
that it improves. 

If builders wish to obstruct a 
street while building is going on, 
they are obliged to get a permit 
from the city. If a company wishes 
to use a street for a car line, they 
must first obtain a franchise from 
the Board of Estimate and Appor¬ 
tionment. This franchise is a 
contract between the city and the 
company, and states what privi¬ 
leges are given the company and 
what the company is to do for the 
citizens. 

The surface is but a part of a 
New York street. Below the sur¬ 
face are subways, water mains, 
sewers, gas mains, conduits for 
electric lights, telephone and tele¬ 
graph wires. Indeed underneath 
some streets are to be found two 
and three levels occupied by sub¬ 
way and tube-train lines. 


TRANSPORTATION 


119 


Crowded Streets. —How busy are 
the streets? In some places they 
are as quiet as the “main” street 
of a country village, but in the 
busy sections nearly as many 
people pass along a single street 
every day as the entire population 
of the city of Newark, New Jersey. 
It is estimated that an average of 
more than 350,000 pedestrians and 
21,000 vehicles traverse Forty- 
second Street daily. More than 
32,000 people are employed by 
firms along this street. At the 
corner of Forty-second Street and 
Fifth Avenue, several policemen 
are needed to care for the traffic. 

How can you serve your city in 
caring for its streets? You can 
do your part in keeping the streets 
clean. You can help to avoid ac¬ 


cidents by observing the rules of 
traffic and being careful. You can 
help others to do the right thing 
by not doing the wrong thing your¬ 
self. 

Accident Prevention Rules. —Be¬ 
cause of the great number of 
deaths caused by drivers of ve¬ 
hicles, the Police Department of 
New York City has undertaken a 
campaign of instruction in the 
schools and elsewhere on “Acci¬ 
dent Prevention.” These rules 
are very simple, but are often 
violated by pedestrians either 
through thoughtlessness or im¬ 
patience. Write out five rules 
that you would have your little 
brother or sister observe in walk¬ 
ing along the street. 


Questions 

I. Explain why New York may be III. Why are more subways urged in- 

called a world market. stead of surface or elevated lines in the 

II. Why is it so important that there city of New York? 

should be so many bridges between Man- IV. Most accidents are preventable. Ex- 
hattan and Brooklyn? plain. 


120 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


CHAPTER XVIII 

The Business of the City 


New York a Business Center.— 

Before we can have a city or any 
group of people in one place we 
must have something to call them 
there. The interest that Euro¬ 
peans had in trading in the New 
World was one of the prime rea¬ 
sons for their coming to America. 
The first settlers of Manhattan 
built their homes there because it 
was a good place from which to 
carry on business with the Indians. 
It was at the end of the Hudson 
River and on the bay, a convenient 
place from which to travel into the 
mainland as well as a good place 




Brown Bros. 


The Pennsylvania station in New York City. 

It faces Seventh Avenue. 

to ship from. These same condi¬ 
tions have as much influence upon 
the life of the city as they did in 
the days of the Dutch settlers. 
With its ideal harbor, great water¬ 
front, and location easily reached 
from the prosperous country to the 
west, New York is an ideal place 
for trade and manufacture. 

Over one hundred steamship 
lines come regularly to the port. 
These numerous lines keep the 
city in touch with all ports of the 


An ocean liner. 




THE BUSINESS OF THE CITY 


121 



Brown Bros. 


Tile New York Custom House. 

world and enable shippers to get 
their goods away without delay. 
If one boat is missed, there is 
always another within a short 
time. 

Eleven great railway systems 
have their terminals at the port of 
New York. 

With the whole world as a mar¬ 
ket as well as a source of raw ma¬ 
terials, New York has become the 
great manufacturing center of the 
United States. It produces more 
than twice as much from its manu¬ 
facturing plants as Chicago, the 
second industrial city in the 
country. 

Great Industries of New York.— 

First in importance among the 


city’s industries is the wholesale 
manufacturing of clothing. Over 
half of the clothing worn in the 
entire country is made in New 
York City. 

It would be impossible in a book 
like this to tell something of all 
the industries to be found in the 
city. A table is shown below that 
gives some interesting facts about 
some of the more important ones: 

Leading Industries in the City of New York, 1919 





Printing and 

publishing..3,316 88,514 $240,105,119 $411,138,928 

Men’s cloth¬ 
ing.2,516 66,037 227,328,947 564,407,739 

Foundry and 
machine 

products. . .1,382 42,580 133,376,137 155,595,160 

Women’s 

clothing ..5,089 119,627 251,327,900 866,243,561 

Tobacco _1,457 19,832 88,360,337 147,216,742 

Bakery 

products ..2,319 28,033 69,341,039 173,510,009 

Slaughtering . 165 6,497 48,256,410 191,837,831 

Copper, tin, 
and sheet- 


iron . 492 13,451 41,489,281 59,681,585 

Musical in¬ 
struments . 102 9,064 36,064,308 40,091,833 

Paint and 

varnish ... 113 5,243 38,064,283 57,360,688 

Millinery and 

lace goods.. 1,789 34,045 52,897,410 162,186,055 

Silk and silk 

goods. 126 7,773 43,761,503 54,526,901 

Patent medi¬ 
cines . 432 10,464 44,989,493 75,280,374 

Jewelry . 665 7,551 35,685,377 65,391,579 

Furniture ... 479 9,626 21,521,884 42,590,856 


It may be interesting when 
thinking of the industries of the 
city to note that the combined 
product of all the industries of 










122 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 


Bush Terminal buildings and docks in 
Brooklyn. 

New York is greater than the com¬ 
bined output of Pittsburgh, Cleve¬ 
land, Cincinnati, Detroit, Boston, 
Milwaukee, and Buffalo. One per¬ 
son out of every seven in the city 
is employed in manufacturing. 

The manufactured articles go 
everywhere. Over one-half of the 
foreign trade of the nation is done 
in New York. From what has al¬ 
ready been told, it can be seen how 
large a share of the domestic trade 
is done here. 

Many Banks in New York.—With 
all this manufacturing and trading 
being done in the city, it follows 
that a great deal of banking busi¬ 
ness must be done in New York. 
There are one hundred and twen¬ 


ty-four banks in Manhattan alone, 
and many more in the other bor¬ 
oughs. These range from small 
banks in some of the small com¬ 
munities of Staten Island to the 
largest banking houses in the 
world. Some of the largest among 
these are: National City Bank, 
First National Bank, National 
Bank of Commerce, Bankers’ 
Trust Company, Chase National 
Bank, and the Guaranty Trust Co. 

The Ever-changing City.—A visi¬ 
tor to New York for the first time 



Brown Bros. 


New York Stock Exchange. 

is likely to get the impression that 
the city is being built for the first 
time now. In nearly every block 
great structures are being piled up 






THE BUSINESS OF THE CITY 


toward the sky, each one higher 
and finer than buildings erected 
last year in the same block. Every 
hour of the working day sees about 
twenty buildings of various kinds 
completed in New York City. 

Many large department stores 
and hundreds of small shops are 
necessary to meet the needs of the 
six million people in New York, 
and other millions who come to the 
city to do a great deal of their 
shopping. 

So much business calls for hun¬ 
dreds of laborers. There is an 
ever-increasing demand for more 
men and women to run the ma¬ 
chines and do the other work nec¬ 
essary to keep all the hundreds of 
manufacturing plants in oper¬ 
ation. The growth in population 
is several thousands a month. 
Many people in the city remember 
when the population was but two 
hundred and fifty thousand. No 
doubt many of us who are living 
to-day will live to see a city of 
twenty-five million. 

The City’s Part in Business.—All 
this business could not be done un¬ 
less the city does its part. What 
is the city’s relation to business? 
How can it help business? 

It must provide means of travel 
so the worker can reach his work. 


123 

All this has been discussed to some 
extent in another chapter. 

A special city department, the 
work of which is the improvement 
of commerce and transit condi¬ 
tions, is the Department of Plants 
and Structures. The head of this 
department is the Commissioner 
of Plants and Structures ap¬ 
pointed by the Mayor. He has 
supervision over construction, re¬ 
pair, and management of bridges 
and tunnels constructed at the ex¬ 
pense of the city. This depart¬ 
ment controls city-owned ferries, 
also all buildings, boats, vehicles, 
etc., owned by the city and used by 
the various departments. 



Brown Bros. 


On the way from the Great Lakes to the 
ocean hy the way of the Barge Canal. 



METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


124 

The Department of Docks has 
the supervision of all waterfront 
property belonging to the city. All 
private docks are under the Dock 
Commissioner’s control, who is 
also director of the port. 

It is becoming more apparent 
every day that there must be some 
additions to the many ways that 
already exist for carrying passen¬ 
gers about the city. The Transit 
Commission was created to super¬ 
vise all railroads, street railroads, 
and stage or omnibus lines or 
routes operated in whole or in 
part in New York City. The mem¬ 
bers of this commission are ap¬ 
pointed by the governor of the 
state. This commission is also 
required to provide a plan to re¬ 
lieve the overcrowded condition of 
the transit lines of the city at 
present. 

Many plans have been suggested 
by various people for improving 
the city streets so it will be easier 
for large crowds to be moved more 



How the city fills up every business day 
from the suburban area. 

conveniently. These plans will be 
discussed in another chapter about 
city planning. 


Questions 


I. Give all the different things necessary 
for a good trading center. 

II. What is the advantage of having a 
railroad terminal in the city? 

III. What are the advantages that New 


York has for foreign trade that a city like 
Chicago lacks? 

IY. Why are good transit conditions 
necessary for a city like New York? 

















BUILDING AND BUILDINGS 


125 


CHAPTER XIX 

Building and Buildings 


New Buildings Everywhere.— 

From day to day certain sections 
of the newspapers give accounts 
of building operations in the cities 
where the newspapers are pub¬ 
lished. One has but to take a 
drive through any part of metro¬ 
politan New York to become im¬ 
pressed with what seems to be a 
rush in constructing various 



Brown Bros. 


A skyscraper near Times Square. 


kinds of buildings. In some of the 
suburbs and in the residential 
sections of the various boroughs of 
New York, street after street is 
lined with new or partly built 
homes. Factories and stores are 
either being built on vacant lots 
or are replacing older structures 
that have been wrecked to give 
way to something better. 

The Sunday editions of the 
great dailies give a complete sec¬ 
tion to real estate and building. 
An account of building operations 
in New York taken from the Feb¬ 
ruary eighth (1925) issue of the 
New York Herald-Tribune gives 
the following: 

Construction Awarded in Greater New York. 

During Year 


Number New Floor 

Classification Projects Space, Sq. Ft. Valuation 


Business buildings. .. . 

1,525 

27,075,300 $162,720,800 

Educational buildings. 
Hospitals and institu 

. 194 

7,227,300 

61,313,800 

tions . 

56 

1,306,400 

9,928,600 

Industrial buildings.. . 

279 

3,407,100 

50,253,700 

Military and naval 

buildings . 

3 

1,500 

28,600 

Public buildings. 

30 

1,383,000 

7,113,100 

Public works and 

utilities . 

50 

426,200 

24,552,900 

Religious and memo- 

rial buildings. 

107 

1,083,100 

11,672,700' 

Residential buildings. 

7,970 

106,824,100 

549,527,000 

Social and recreational 

buildings . 

123 

1,683,800 

13,795,000 

Total . 

December 1, 1923— 

10,337 150,417,800 
December 1, 1924. 

$890,906,200 

















126 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


When the new tunnels, bridges, 
and subways made it possible to 
reach vacant areas in the outlying 
boroughs, there was a rush of 
home seekers and business men to 
those parts. In the seven years 
from 1916 to 1923, Manhattan’s 
outlay in new buildings increased 
from $134,000,000 to $204,000,000. 
Brooklyn, however, went from 
$42,000,000 to $284,000,000, while 
The Bronx jumped from $18,- 
000,000 to $128,000,000 and Queens 
from $21,000,000 to $156,000,000- 
all of which shows the effect of 
better transit facilities; also that 
the whole metropolitan district 
will increase in population just as 
fast as conveniences are furnished 
the people to live and carry on 
some business. 

Inspection of Buildings.—With so 
much building going on, it is neces¬ 
sary to have rules and regulations 
as to planning, placing, and con¬ 
struction of the buildings so that 
the safety of the public, the health 
of the dwellers, and the attractive 
appearance of the city shall be 
preserved. To this end a Superin¬ 
tendent of Buildings is appointed 
by the Borough President in each 
borough. All plans for new build¬ 
ings must first be approved by in¬ 
spectors of the examining division 


of the superintendent’s office. 
Every building must comply with 
the law as to thickness of walls, 
building material, strength of 
floors, and construction of and 
material to be used in the chimney. 
The building must have suitable 
plumbing, first-class electrical wir¬ 
ing, gas, water, and waste pipes, 
and must be approved by the con¬ 
struction inspector. 

All tenement houses must meet 
the requirements of the laws which 
are enforced by the Commissioner 
of the Tenement House Depart¬ 
ment. These laws define tenement 
houses and tell how many windows 
each room must have and how they 
are to be placed. It says each 
room must be at least nine feet 
high, all walls must be damp- 
proof, a sink with running water 
must be provided for each apart¬ 
ment, and if the tenement is more 
than six stories high, it must be 
of fire-proof construction. All 
plumbing must be repaired imme¬ 
diately. The ladder or stairway 
leading to the roof must be free 
from all encumbrances. Fire es¬ 
capes must be kept painted and in 
good repair. A light must be kept 
burning near the stairs on the en¬ 
trance floor, and upon the next 
floor above the entrance floor 


Zoned Communities Within the 30-mile Circle. 


♦ Ordinance provides for 
Use refutations only 


Bogota, N.J. 

Bound Brook, N.J. 
Bronxville. N.Y. 
Caldwell. N. J 
Cliffsida Park. NJ. 


Cranford. N.J. 

East 0rande.. N.J 
Elizabeth. N.J 
Fort Lee. N.J. 

Carden City. NX 
Garwood. N.J. 

Glen Rid6e, N.J. 

♦Great Neck Estates. N.Y. 
♦Hawthorne. N.J 


Hillside, N.J 
Hoboken. N.J. 
Irvington. N.J. 
Jersey Gfy, N.J. 
Kearney, N.J. 

♦ Leonia, N.J. 

♦ Linden, N.J. 

Lon4 Branch. N.J. 
Madison. N.J. 

♦ Maplewood, N.J. 
Montclair. N.J- 
Mf. Vernon,N.Y. 
Newark. N.J. 

New Rochelle. N.Y. 
New York City, N.Y. 
North Pelham. N.Y. 
fgtley. N.J. 



Orange. NJ. 
Passaic, N.J. 
Paterson. NJ. 
Pelham, N.Y. 
Pelham Manor, N.Y. 
Rahway. N.J. 
Roselle. N.J 
Roselle Rjrk.N.J. 
Rutherford. NJ. 
Rye, N.Y. 
Scarsdale, N.Y 
South Orange. N.J. 
Teaneck, N.J. 
Totowa, N.J. 
•Verona. N.J. 
Westfield, N.J. 
West Hoboken.N.J. 
West Orange,N.J. 
White Rains, N.Y. 
Yonkers. N.Y. 

Boonton. N. J 
IrvinOton, N Y. 
Larcnmont, N V 
Mamaroneck Tbwn.NY 

(^incorporated part) 

Part Chester. NY 
Ridgefield ferk.NJ. 
Ridgewood. N J 
Tenafly. N J. 


NEW YORK AND ENVIRONS 

SHOWING 

INCORPORATED PLACES 0c 
MAPPED AfU > ZONED AREAS 


Miles 


«o 

MAR ldZ3. 

LEGEND 


\ / /A Incorporated 

Incorporated 
and Mapped 


Zoning Plan 
bein<5 prepared 

Zoning Plan adopted 


PLAN OF NEW YORK 
AND ITS ENVIRONS 

PHYSICAL SURYEY-OOE ff-ST. 


Boundaries Note. 

5 tat e - Circles indicate distances 

Coonty - from New York City Hall. j 

Township. City etc. - 


Courtesy Russell Sage Foundation. 


127 































128 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


every night from sunset to sun¬ 
rise, and upon all floors from sun¬ 
set until ten in the evening. No 
room shall be so overcrowded that 
it affords less than four hundred 
cubic feet of air to each adult and 
two hundred cubic feet to each 
child under twelve years of age. 

All tenements meeting these re¬ 
quirements are “new law tene¬ 
ments.’ ’ This law was passed in 
1901. The “old law tenements,” 
or tenements built before 1901, are 
inspected regularly to see that 
health conditions are kept at a sat¬ 
isfactory standard. The Tene¬ 
ment House Department has 
charge of the apartment houses as 
well as tenements. 

In all buildings used for busi¬ 
ness purposes inspectors from va¬ 
rious city departments see to it 
that building laws, labor laws, 
health laws, and fire laws are 
complied with. The State Labor 
Department inspects buildings to 
determine whether the workers’ 
safety and health are provided for. 
The modern factory has a fully- 
equipped health station that cares 
for all emergency cases or illness 
of its workers while on duty. Many 
serious factory fires in the past 
have shown the necessity of con¬ 
stant inspection and watchfulness* 



Brown Bros. 


A skyscraper of the future. 

against fire by the Fire Depart¬ 
ment. 

Zoning and Building.—The “Zon¬ 
ing Law” is a protection against 
placing undesirable buildings or 
business places where they are not 
wanted. A residential center 
might be spoiled by a factory or a 
store placed in its midst. The 
grouping of certain types of build¬ 
ings and business in sections set 
aside for them is one of the best 
moves in city planning. The regu¬ 
lation of the height of buildings 
and their style of construction ac- 







BUILDING AND BUILDINGS 


129 


cording to the width of the streets 
is also provided for by the zoning 
law. The skyscraper of to-day is 
not the nuisance some of the ear¬ 
lier high buildings were. They cut 
off their neighbor’s light and made 
a cavern of the streets upon which 
they were placed. 

The modern skyscraper is an 
American product. There are 
high structures in other parts of 
the world, but there is nothing that 
compares with the giant structures 
to be found in New York and other 
American cities. A novelist once 
called this the “Vertical City.” 
Can you give the reason why? 

The Skyscraper of 1880.—The 
first real skyscraper built in the 
United States was the Mills Build¬ 
ing on Broad Street, Manhattan. 
This building was erected in 
1881-1882 by Darius 0. Mills. It 
was ten stories high and was more 
of a wonder in its day than a fifty- 
story building to-day. 

There was a reason for a ten- 
story building being wonderful in 
1880. At that time the two essen¬ 
tials of tall building construction 
had not been perfected. The ele¬ 
vator of those days was the slow- 
moving hydraulic type, a little bet¬ 
ter than the old steam “lift” which 
until that time was used in the 



The Woolworth building. 

larger buildings. The electric 
elevator came into general use in 
1888, and has been made better and 
better until it is the perfect ma¬ 
chine that is to be found in the 
finest office buildings. It makes 
an office on the fortieth floor as 
accessible as one on the third. 

The skeleton frame of structural 
steel is the second essential of high 
buildings. When a way was found 
to have each floor of a building 
support its own load, it was not 
necessary to plan for thick walls 
to support the weight of the build¬ 
ing. The walls of our tall build¬ 
ings are hardly more than an out¬ 
side covering. 

The Old and New Skyscraper.— 

Just now, as this book is being 
written (1925), the Mills Building 





130 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


is being wrecked to be replaced 
by the new Equitable Trust Build¬ 
ing. The Mills Building was 120 
feet high; the new building will be 
500 feet high. The old building 
was planned in part as it was built, 
because it was an experiment. 
The new building was planned in 
every detail, down to the last inch 
of plaster in an office. The foun¬ 
dation of the old structure was of 
wooden piles driven into the earth; 
the foundation of the Equitable 
Trust Building is of solid concrete 
on bed rock. There will be five 
basements below the street level. 
The walls of the old building were 
a serious problem, but the walls of 
the new building will be merely a 
sheeting of masonry a foot thick. 
Eight hundred tenants filled the 
Mills Building; the Equitable 
Trust Building will accommodate 
five thousand tenants. Instead of 
seven elevators which took care 
of all who wished to use them in 
the Mills Building, the new build¬ 
ing will have twenty passenger 
elevators and eight private or 
semi-private cars in certain parts 
of the building. 

The interior of the new building 
will be beautifully designed. The 
ceilings, walls, and floors will be 
finished so as to make them as at¬ 



Brown Bros. 


Cathedral of St. John the Divine as it will 
appear when completed. 

tractive as possible. This was not 
always done in the old structures, 
partly because it was not thought 
essential and partly because mate¬ 
rials for decorating were not so 
easily obtained as at the present 
time. Like others of the modern 
skyscrapers, the exterior of the 
new building will be much better 
designed than that of the old 
building that it replaces. All this 
is a part of the progress in mod¬ 
ern building. 

There are many famous build¬ 
ings in New York. A building 
need not tower to the sky to be a 
great building, however. One of 
the most famous as well as one of 
the most beautiful buildings in the 



BUILDING AND BUILDINGS 


131 


city is the City Hall. Mention is 
made elsewhere of the Public 
Library on Fifth Avenue at Forty- 
second Street. The Grand Central 
and the Pennsylvania terminals 
are both wonderful structures in 
size and beauty of design. None 
of these buildings are skyscrapers. 

For those who may be interested 
in identifying the buildings in New 
York, a list of buildings along with 
some facts about them may be 
found on pages 155-156. 

There are certain buildings 
in New York which are famous 
for their historical associations. 
There is Fraunce’s Tavern at the 
corner of Broadway and Pearl 
Street. Here Washington bade 
farewell to his officers at the close 
of the Revolutionary War. It is 
preserved to-day as an historical 
landmark, and the rooms in the up¬ 
per part of the building have many 
old relics of Revolutionary days. 

The Jumel Mansion in the up¬ 
town section of Manhattan Island 
is another famous landmark of the 
period immediately following the 
Revolution. At the corner of Two 
Hundred and Seventh Street and 
Broadway is another old building 
restored to its famous state when 
it was used by General Washing¬ 
ton as his headquarters at the 



lirown Bros. 


£t. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, 

one of the great churches of the world. 

time the American Army was pre¬ 
paring to cross into Jersey in 1776 
for its retreat, which ended in the 
glorious victory at Trenton on 
Christmas Day. 

There were many other famous 
old buildings in and around New 
York which have been destroyed 
by the march of progress. The 
site of the mansion which was the 
home of the first president of the 
United States is now occupied by 
one of the towers of the Brooklyn 
Bridge at Cherry Street and 





132 METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


Franklin Square. In Europe the 
people for centuries have taken 
pride in preserving their historic 
places. In America we have 
thoughtlessly destroyed many of 


them, and have thus deprived fu¬ 
ture generations of the oppor¬ 
tunity of coming into contact with 
places and objects that are sacred 
to the name of patriotism. 


Questions 


I. What does a great deal of building in 
the city indicate? 

II. Why must buildings be inspected 
while being constructed? 

III. What are the reasons for a strict 
tenement-house law? 

IV. How does a public garage placed 
in the midst of fine homes spoil the neigh¬ 


borhood as a select residential center? 

V. Why is the elevator necessary for 
skyscrapers ? 

VI. What are the advantages of tall 
buildings ? 

VII. What is the value of an old build¬ 
ing which has been the scene of great 
events in history? 


CHAPTER XX 

Laws and Lawmakers 


Deportment Records.—In nearly 
all schools where monthly report 
cards are given to the pupils, a 
record is made on that card of the 
pupil’s conduct or deportment. A 
high mark for conduct means that 
the pupil has carefully observed 
the rules of the school. These rules 
are not necessarily written rules. 
What we know of “right” and 
“wrong” guides us in our conduct 
as much as the printed rules. This 
is as true in life outside and be¬ 
yond the school age as it is in the 
school. The majority of the citi¬ 
zens of our country are known as 


law-abiding men and women, yet 
they do not know the wording of 
many laws. 

Necessity of Laws.—There must 
be a standard of conduct, however, 
and it is therefore necessary to 
have laws passed to cover all pos¬ 
sible questions that may arise. 

Throughout the chapters of this 
book that deal with the life of the 
people, mention is often made of 
the various departments, the offi¬ 
cers, and laws that decide what all 
citizens must do to avoid arrest or 
punishment. 

Every city and town in the met- 


133 


LAWS AND LAWMAKERS 


ropolitan district has a charter or 
similar document that outlines its 
plan of government. In general a 
mayor is provided for, as are law¬ 
making bodies. Courts of dif¬ 
ferent kinds are called for. These 
courts decide what laws mean, and 
they also determine the punish¬ 
ment for law breakers that appear 
before them. 

The City Charter.—New York is 
so large that its charter must pro¬ 
vide for many departments to care 
for all its activities. Other cities 
of the district have departments 
and offices as they may find it nec¬ 
essary. A city as large as New¬ 
ark, New Jersey, though not so 
extensive in size as New York, has 
many questions in common with 
the larger city. 

It must not be forgotten that 
many of the laws made by the state 
legislature in New York and the 
state assembly in New Jersey ap¬ 
ply to the people in the cities as 
well as to other citizens of the 
state, unless the law is designed 
to affect some particular commu¬ 
nity. 

State Laws.—The Legislature of 
New York State is provided for in 
the state constitution. The Leg¬ 
islature is the lawmaking body 
of the state. It consists of two 



Brown Bros. 


The state capitol at Albany. 

branches, the Senate and the 
Assembly. The Senate is the up¬ 
per house and has fifty-one mem¬ 
bers. The Assembly has one hun¬ 
dred and fifty members. The Sen¬ 
ators are elected at the same elec¬ 
tion at which the Governor is 
elected (every even year), and 
they serve for two years. The 
members of the Assembly are 
chosen for a term of one year only. 

The Legislative session is held 
annually beginning on the first 
Wednesday in January. Special 
sessions may be called by the Gov¬ 
ernor. 

In New Jersey, the lawmaking 
body is called the State Assembly. 
It consists of twenty-one Senators 



134 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


and sixty Assemblymen. The As¬ 
sembly meets annually beginning 
the second Tuesday in January. 
The term of both Senators and 
Assemblymen is one year. 

Both these state lawmaking 
bodies work after the same plan 
as the United States Congress. 
That is, various committees are 
appointed, and the proposed laws 
must go through the hands of the 
appropriate committee. While be¬ 
ing considered in the Legislature, 
the proposed law is called a bill. 
If the bill meets the approval of 
the committee, it is reported to one 
of the two houses which considers 
it. If it is passed by that house, 
it is sent to the other house. If it 
receives enough votes to pass it in 
the second house, it is sent to the 
Governor for his approval. The 
Governor may either sign it, which 
means approval, or he may veto it. 
If he vetoes it, the proposed law 
may still become a law by being 
repassed by both houses by a two- 
thirds vote. The details of the 
method of handling bills is set 
forth in the state constitution. 
Many of the processes that the 
bills go through while in the hands 
of the committees and while being 
considered on the floor of the Leg¬ 
islature are to be found in the 


rules and regulations that have 
been framed by the legislators 
themselves. 

Besides the state laws there are 
national laws framed by the 
United States Congress. 

City Affairs.—For questions that 
concern the city alone a certain 
amount of home rule is desirable. 
There are problems in every city 
that concern only the citizens of 
that city. Many of the chapters of 
this book have dealt with such 
questions. 

The charter of the city of New 
York tills a large volume. The 
laws dealing with Greater New 
York would fill several volumes. 
The State Legislature granted the 
original charter to the city and has 
added many amendments to it. 

In order that the city might 
have more of a voice in the many 
laws concerning the city’s affairs 
which the Legislature passes at 
every session, an amendment has 
been added to the state consti¬ 
tution which is known as the Home 
Rule Amendment. By the provi¬ 
sions of this amendment, the bills 
that affect New York City must be 
sent to the Mayor within fifteen 
days after their passage. The 
Mayor signs the bill if he approves 
of it. If he does not approve of it, 


135 


LAWS AND LAWMAKERS 


he returns it to the Legislature 
where it may become a law if a 
majority of both houses again 
approve of it. If the legislative 
session ends before the fifteen 
days are up, a “pocket veto” may 
stop the bill from becoming a law. 

City Lawmakers. — The city’s 
legislature consists of sixty-seven 
aldermen elected from the various 
aldermanic districts in the city, the 
five borough presidents, and the 
President of the Board of Aider- 
men—a total of seventy-three 
members. The Board of Aider- 
men meet at least once a month, 
except during July and August, 
in the Aldermanic Chamber in the 
City Hall. Tuesday is the day of 
the meetings. The President of 
the Board of Aldermen is the pre¬ 
siding officer. This same officer 
becomes acting mayor in the 
Mayor’s absence. If the Mayor’s 
office becomes vacant, the Presi¬ 
dent of the Board of Aldermen be¬ 
comes mayor and may hold office 
until the first day of January suc¬ 
ceeding the election of a new 
mayor. 

The Board of Estimate and Ap¬ 
portionment which consists of the 
Mayor, Comptroller, President of 
the Board of Aldermen, and the 
presidents of the boroughs of the 



Learning how to vote at an Elmhurst, L. I. 
Public School. 


city is really a Board of Directors 
of the city’s affairs. Its power is 
very broad. Many of the policies 
of the city are framed by this 
board. It has taken over so many 
of the powers once exercised by 
the Board of Aldermen that it far 
exceeds that board in power for 
guiding the affairs of the city. 
This board meets at the City Hall 
on Fridays. 

Expenses of the City.—The most 
important work done by the Board 
of Estimate and Apportionment 
is the preparation of the annual 
tax budget. The heads of the 
various city departments are re¬ 
quired to prepare estimates of the 
amounts necessary to conduct 
their departments before Septem- 







136 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


ber tenth each year. From these 
estimates the Board of Estimate 
and Apportionment must prepare, 
between October first and No¬ 
vember first, a budget of estimated 
amounts required for carrying on 
the city’s business for the follow¬ 
ing year. After public hearings 
on the proposed budget, it is sent 
to the Board of Aldermen, which 
body must adopt the budget within 
twenty days. This board may re¬ 
duce the budget, but it cannot add 
to it. If the Board of Aldermen 
fail to pass the budget, it becomes 
effective as proposed by the Board 
of Estimate and Apportionment. 
The Mayor and comptroller are 
required to sign the budget before 
it becomes a public document. 
Either the Mayor or Comptroller 
may reduce the budget, but they 
cannot add to it. 

A study of the annual budget of 
New York City gives a very good 
idea of the great size of the city. 
A city of six million people must 
transact an immense amount of 
business in order that all the 
needs of such a vast population 
may be satisfied. The budget for 
1925 called for an expenditure 
of $371,252,346.64. Eighty-three 
items are provided for. Three of 
the large items are: Police Depart- 



Brown Bros. 


A jury trial, boys and girls taking the lead¬ 
ing parts. 

ment, nearly $40,000,000; Eire De¬ 
partment, $19,000,000; and De¬ 
partment of Education, nearly 
$80,000,000. 

Privileges of the City Family.— 

The American city is not perfect in 
the laws that it has to regulate its 
affairs. It is true, however, that 
the privileges offered to the city 
family are many. With good 
schools designed to meet the need 
of every class; with a police sys¬ 
tem providing safety for all; a fire 
department protecting property 
against loss; with a good water 
supply; and with an efficient sys¬ 
tem of keeping the city clean, a 
good deal is done to assure con¬ 
tentment. If we add the hospitals 
















PLANNING THE CITY 137 

and asylums for the sick and needy for those who wish to break the 
and the reformatories and jails laws provided for the welfare of 
for the offenders, much of the the people, 
worry is removed from life except 

Questions 

I. How do we know what is “right’ 7 or people in other parts of the state? 

“wrong”? IV. What do you mean by a budget? 

II. Why must we have laws? V. Why should so much money be spent 

III. What are some of the questions that for education? 

cities must deal with that do not concern VI. Do we have laws in the home? 

CHAPTER XXI 

Planning the City 

Laying Out the First Streets.— dam were laid out in a haphazard 
The first streets in New Amster- fashion. The early settlers built 


An aerial view of lower New York. 


Brown Bros. 





138 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



An air view of the City of Washington. 


their houses wherever they wished. 
A footpath became a street after 
a few houses were built along it. 
Cow paths made by the cattle go¬ 
ing to and returning from the pas¬ 
tures sometimes became streets. 
All this resulted in the tangle of 
streets to be found in lower Man¬ 
hattan to-day. Only two streets 
were of any great length. One led 
from the Battery to the ferry con¬ 
necting the town with Brooklyn, 
and the other led northward 
through the center of the town. 
This road was the beginning of 
Broadway. Another pathway be¬ 


came a street when the wall was 
erected on the present site of Wall 
Street. Many other famous 
streets were first paths to a 
brook, to a woodlot, or perhaps 
to some shady lane that served as 
a pleasant walk. 

Broadway was at one time called 
Bloomingdale Road, or the “Bou¬ 
levard.” It was a country road 
leading far out of the town in 
those days. There were many fine 
country estates along its course. 

The * 1807 Plan.—The plan of 
north and south avenues with the 
cross streets as the city is now, 








PLANNING THE CITY 


139 


was the result of a plan of a com¬ 
mittee of three men headed by 
Governor Morris in 1807. They 
gave the matter careful thought, 
hut they made a great mistake. 
Their plan gave no opportunity for 
developing a city beautiful. There 
was no place to start from and no 
place to go by way of planning an 
arrangement of buildings in an 
artistic manner. 

The city of Washington is an 
example of a city arranged well as 
to its streets and the placing of 
buildings. It is also easy to 
handle traffic in that city because 
of the numerous streets leading to 
the center of the city and the many 
streets that may be used to pass 
around the busiest areas. A pic¬ 
ture of Washington is shown on 
the opposite page giving an idea 
of its plan. 

Planned Streets.— It should not be 
said that nothing has been done in 
New York City and the area out¬ 
side by way of good planning of 
streets. Many of the suburban 
highways are beautiful drives. No 
other great city in the world has 
leading from it more well-paved 
highways over which the automo- 
bilist may within a half hour 
travel from city streets to beauti¬ 
ful mountain country. Westches¬ 


ter and Putnam counties to the 
north on the east side of the Hud¬ 
son River are netted with good 
roads. On the west side of the 
Hudson good roads lead every¬ 
where. 

Many of the newer areas in the 
outlying boroughs have streets 
that are planned to best serve a 
large population to come. 

The parkways constructed and 
planned are a part of the plan to 
beautify the city, and furnish the 
traveler a thoroughfare that will 
add to the pleasure of his drive. 
The Grand Concourse connecting 
Manhattan with Bronx Park 
is the finest of these parkways. 
Pelham Parkway connects Pelham 
Bay and Van Cortlandt Park. 
The Interborough Parkway is 
planned to run from Forest Park 
in Queens to Brooklyn. Prospect 
Park and Cypress Hills are joined 
by Eastern Parkway. The most 
beautiful drive in the city is Riv¬ 
erside Drive, which affords a beau¬ 
tiful view of the Hudson River. 
Much of this drive is lined with 
trees which add to its beauty. 
Many of the finest memorials in 
New York, such as the Soldiers’ 
and Sailors’ Monument, Joan of 
Arc, and Grant’s Tomb, are to be 
seen on Riverside Drive. 


140 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



Brown Bros. 

Storm King Highway near Bear Mountain Park. 


Too Few Parks.—The same men 
who planned the layout of the 
streets in 1807 also made the mis¬ 
take of not providing enough 
small parks. They thought 
enough fresh air would come from 
the open sea and the rivers on 
either side of the island. They 
little dreamed of the densely popu¬ 
lated areas in New York to-day. 
It is little wonder, however, that 
men who thought the only way to 
live was in one-family houses with 


plenty of space would ever think 
of the tenements and apartments 
housing dozens of families in the 
same building. Our best plans to¬ 
day may appear crude to the New 
Yorker of 2025. Those men 
of the early days thought it would 
be centuries before houses would 
cover the space north of “ Harlem 
Flat.” What do we know of the 
city of one hundred years hence? 

Transit Questions.—It was not 
many years ago that the width of 








PLANNING TEE CITY 


141 


the sidewalks in the busy sections 
of the city was fixed. On any busy 
day people are crowded from the 
walks on to the pavements by the 
great crowds of people. Some¬ 
thing must be done about provid¬ 
ing space for pedestrians. A 
building like the Woolworth Build¬ 
ing has room for so many people 
that when they leave for home in 
the afternoon, they crowd the 
streets, cars, and subways. The 
large theaters are nearly all in one 
section of the city. Most theaters 
open and close at the same time. 
The vast numbers who attend these 
theaters must have some way to 
reach their homes. 

The movement of theater-go¬ 
ing crowds is only one of the many 
that make the problem of better 
transit facilities the most impor¬ 
tant question before the authori¬ 
ties of New York to-day. This 
problem not only concerns the city 
of New York, however. It con¬ 
cerns the whole metropolitan dis¬ 
trict. 

The many routes of passenger 
travel from the suburban areas to 
the city of New York are always 
crowded. In 1923 there was a 
total of one hundred forty-six mil¬ 
lion commuters who, during the 
year, went back and forth from 


suburban homes to the city. Thou¬ 
sands of others visited New York 
each day. Even though a total of 
2,440 trains arrive at the terminal 
stations in New York each day, 
the service is not satisfactory 
either as to quality or quantity. 

The railroad lines having ter¬ 
minals in or near the City of New 
York are as follows: Long Island 
Railroad; New York Central; New 
York, New Haven, and Hartford; 
New York, Westchester, and Bos¬ 
ton; Baltimore and Ohio; Central 
Railroad of New Jersey; Dela¬ 
ware, Lackawanna, and Western; 
Erie; Pennsylvania; Lehigh Val¬ 
ley; and West Shore. Seven other 
railroads connect with different 
ones of these lines in the New Jer¬ 
sey section. 

One plan that has been proposed 
to help the suburban travelers is 
the building of three two- or four- 
track railroad lines into the New 
Jersey, the Westchester, and the 
Long Island sections respectively. 
These lines could be constructed 
so as to form a loop around the 
city so passengers could reach 
many points easily where at pres¬ 
ent they have to make a trip to 
the center of the city and make 
several changes. Terminal sta¬ 
tions may be built in the right 



plan of new york 
ANO ITS ENVIRONS. 

PHTSKAL 50RVtY-l30t ?rS 


THEORETICAL DIAGRAM 

SHOWING 

MAIN HIGHWAY ROUTES 

IN 

THE NEW YORK. DISTRICT 

FULL LINES SHOW GENERAL LOCATION OF EXISTING ROAOS. 
BROKEN LINES SHOV» OiPECT CONNECTIONS WHICH MAY BC 
SOPPLIE0 IN THE FUTURE. 

EXISTING FERRIES ♦ • ♦ ♦ » 

1023 


Jf 


Courtesy of the Russell Sage Foundation. 


142 
















143 


PLANNING THE CITY 


places to best care for tlie passen¬ 
gers. 

The average fare paid by com¬ 
muters is thirty-five cents each 
way. It is estimated that the new 
plan might reduce this fare to ten 
cents. If this should ever happen, 
no doubt thousands of New York 
dwellers to-day would move to the 
suburbs where they could enjoy 
the roominess that the suburban 
home affords. Any plan that will 
help the workers in offices, stores, 
and factories to get a home away 
from the noises and confusion of 
the city would be welcomed by 
thousands of home seekers. The 
boy or girl who has always played 
on a cement pavement would think 
a roomy lawn a bit of paradise. 

There are many plans proposed 
for relieving traffic trouble in the 
city itself. 

Super streets with two levels, 
one for trucks, another for pas¬ 
senger cars, has been suggested. 
Moving sidewalks have been talked 
of for some sections where there 
is a heavy pedestrian traffic. 
Some of the elevated lines have al¬ 
ready been removed and, no doubt, 
within a few years most of such 
lines will be cleared from the 
streets to make more room for 
street traffic. Where such lines 


have been removed, the streets 
have immediately improved. Prop¬ 
erty prices have risen and old 
structures have been replaced with 
new ones. It is thought that Sixth 
Avenue in Manhattan cleared of 
elevated structures will become a 
second Fifth Avenue in appear¬ 
ance. 

More subways are needed, and a 
campaign is on at present to build 
such lines as may be needed to re¬ 
lieve the jammed stations and cars 
of the present lines. 

Plans for Improving the Harbor.— 
As you have already learned, New 
York Bay and the miles of water 
front in the metropolitan district 
has been extensively improved. 
Much more remains for the future, 
however. There is room for the 
construction of many more docks 
and piers in all the boroughs and 
on the New Jersey side of the bay 
and river. The improvement of 
the Staten Island waterfront is 
only well started. The future, no 
doubt, will see miles of docking 
space in that borough filled with 
vessels busily loading and taking 
in cargoes. 

The Port of Newark is, too, a 
project that must look to the fu¬ 
ture for completion. No doubt the 
Hackensack and Passaic rivers 


144 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


will be dredged and made navi¬ 
gable for large vessels several 
miles inland within a few years. 

The Port Authority.—The im¬ 
provement of the port of New 
York has been placed in the hands 
of the New York Port Authority. 

This is a commission consisting 
of six men—three from New York 
State and three from New Jersey. 
Both states are represented be¬ 
cause it is recognized that the im¬ 
provement of the port is an affair 
that concerns both states. 

The Port Authority has to deal 
with a problem so large that it 
would be difficult to deal with it 
completely in a book of this size. 
The Hudson River is not deep 
enough in all places in' the port 
to accommodate the largest ocean¬ 
going vessels. It is proposed that 
this river be dredged in such 
places as is necessary to give more 
docking space for the larger ves¬ 
sels. The outlets to Jamaica and 
Newark Bay are too shallow to 
permit the type of shipping that 
should use these waterways. They 
must be dredged also. Many 
bridges over the rivers that flow 
into the bay are so low that they 
interfere with shipping. Some of 
these bridges should be removed. 

The commission proposes to 


connect Staten Island to the main¬ 
land by two bridges crossing the 
Arthur Kill between Howland 
Hook on Staten Island and Eliza¬ 
beth, New Jersey, and between 
Tottenville and Perth Amboy, 
New Jersey. A Hudson River 
bridge at Fort Lee and One Hun¬ 
dred and Seventy-eighth Street, 
New York, is also planned. A 
bridge is so much more convenient 
than a ferry that there is no doubt 
that the first two bridges would 
soon bring a large population to 
Staten Island. The Hudson River 
bridge would bring New York 
City and the towns in New Jersey 
on the Palisades much closer to¬ 
gether. It would also provide a 
way to truck foodstuffs into New 
York from New Jersey. 

Several plans are being worked 
out to handle the immense quantity 
of freight that is constantly ar¬ 
riving at the terminals around the 
city, particularly in New Jersey. 
At the present time it costs as 
much to move many foodstuffs 
from the New Jersey terminals as 
it costs to bring vegetables and 
other foods from far western 
states. It is hoped that a belt line 
will be built entirely surrounding 
the port. This line will pass 
through many of the larger cities 


PLANNING THE CITY 


145 


and will be a great help in deliv¬ 
ering freight to these cities with¬ 
out its going to the terminal sta¬ 
tions, and then being reshipped 
either by train or truck as at pres¬ 
ent. Another inner line will make 
it easier to transfer cars from one 
rail to other lines. A line along 
the waterfront is planned to aid 
in transferring freight from piers 
and cars without the necessity of 
storage in yards. 

In order to do away with so 
much trucking, with the long waits 
as at present, it is planned to build 
great terminal stations in Manhat¬ 
tan and transfer freight in trucks 
directly from cars which are to be 
unloaded at stations in New Jer¬ 
sey convenient for all railroads. 
The freight can then be easily 
hauled to the dealers in New York 
from the Manhattan stations. 

It is hoped that all the carfloats, 
lighters, barges, and ferries oper¬ 
ated by the various railroads may 
be directed by one head so as to 
lighten the cost of moving freight 
on the harbor waters. 

There are many other questions 
of transportation around the har¬ 
bor that the Port Authority will 
have to deal with. For exam¬ 
ple, a vast amount of freight 
enters the area around New York 


by truck. The proper routing of 
these trucks is a problem. It is 
not practical for a constant stream 
of heavily laden trucks to pass 
through the main streets of a city 
like Newark. Something must be 
done to change this condition. 

The commissioners of the Port 
Authority are making a complete 
survey of the whole metropolitan 
area, and as time goes on they will 
be able to work out solutions for 
many of the problems that have 
arisen. 

Plans for “Greater” New York.— 

Another commission that is work¬ 
ing on plans that will help the 
whole metropolitan district to be 
a better place to live in is the 
“Committee on a Regional Plan 
for New York and its Environs.” 
This committee works under the 
direction of the Russell Sage 
Foundation. 

The area being studied by this 
committee is very extensive. 
From past experiences it is known 
that there will be a continual 
growth in trade and population 
in the section which is so fav¬ 
orably located. It is estimated 
that by the year 2000 the popula¬ 
tion of the area will be about 
thirty-six millions. This is slightly 
more than the estimated popula- 


146 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 


tion of all the states west of the 
Mississippi River in 1925. 

Because of the many changes 
that will take place in enlarging 
the city itself and the surrounding 
area in order to care for this vast 
population, the committee men¬ 
tioned above was formed. It is 
better to look ahead and be ready 
with suggestions than to wait until 
the problems become too serious 
for easy settlement. 

With this thought before it, the 
committee has undertaken a sur¬ 
vey or study of the business and 
industry in the region, particu¬ 
larly of how the industries have 
moved in order to get the best lo¬ 
cation for carrying their business. 
A study has been made of living 
conditions. Zoning and city plan¬ 
ning has also been considered. 
The traffic and communication 
questions already discussed in va¬ 
rious places in this book have been 
investigated. In connection with 
all this work a great many charts 
and maps have been made. Some 
of these have been used in various 
places in this book. As you look 
at them think of how they form a 
part of the plan to make the met¬ 
ropolitan area a better place for 
the people of the future to work 
and live in. 


Plans for More Water.—Easy 
access to a good water supply has 
already been spoken of as a neces¬ 
sity of a great center of popula¬ 
tion. At present New York City 
is supplied with plenty of water 
from the Croton and Catskill sys¬ 
tems. In New Jersey the Wa- 
naque system will add enough to 
the present supply to provide 
water for years to come. There 
will come a time, however, when 
more water will be needed. It is 
estimated by some engineers that 
New York may require more water 
within ten years than can be ob¬ 
tained from the present sources in 
New York and New Jersey. 

With the prospects of a water 
famine ahead, a tri-state commis¬ 
sion has been formed with men 
from New Jersey, New York, and 
Pennsylvania as members. This 
commission has studied the Dela¬ 
ware River watershed and has pre¬ 
pared a treaty by which the three 
states agree to work together on 
the plan to turn this watershed 
into a source of water for cities 
of the three states. This plan, if 
worked out to completion, will pro¬ 
vide, as one writer says, 4 ‘water 
for millions to drink; power to 
drive mighty industries; health 
for teeming communities; and 


147 


PLANNING THE CITY 


channels for commerce.” 1 A vast 
sum of money will be required for 
this project, but the growth of the 
metropolitan district will depend 
upon its completion. 

Building Never Ends.—Not only 
is the improvement of the port and 
the suburban area a part of the 
work of future ditizens of New 
York, but the actual building of 
the city itself is largely a work of 
the future. There will never come 
a time when the city of New York 
and the cities around it will be fin¬ 
ished. No doubt some of our 
proudest structures to-day will be 
torn down within a few years to 
give space for greater and more 
beautiful buildings. The interest¬ 
ing thing to be noted in the build¬ 
ings of to-day as compared with 
the older structures is that there 
is more of an attempt at the 
beautiful than formerly. Look 
for this in the newer struc¬ 
tures. 

The Zoning Law which regulates 
the heights of buildings, and also 
districts the city into sections in 
which only certain types of build¬ 
ings may be constructed, will do 
much toward making the city 
more beautiful as well as more 

1 New York Times } February 1, 1925. 


agreeable to live and work in. 
There are similar regulations in 
the larger cities outside of New 
York in the metropolitan area. By 
this law homes, churches, schools, 
and buildings of like character are 
given a certain section. Manufac¬ 
turing plants are in another sec¬ 
tion of the city. In congested 
areas of narrow streets tall build¬ 
ings that overshadow other struc¬ 
tures cannot be built. 

Centers of Interest.—In New 
York there are many centers 
around which certain businesses 
are gathered. Wall Street is the 
banking area. The buildings are 
largely of the type that are neces¬ 
sary to carry on the affairs of 
banking, brokerage, and exchange. 
Around the City Hall is the civic 
center. Several large department 
stores and hotels are in the neigh¬ 
borhood of Thirty-third Street and 
Broadway. Times Square is the 
amusement center. The principal 
railway stations have already been 
mentioned as well as the universi¬ 
ties, libraries, and museums and 
parks. 

There is no particular commer¬ 
cial center in New York. The 
whole city is a hive of industry. 
The one street that possesses the 
most beautiful shops and stores is 


148 


METROPOLITAN NEW YORK 



ings. Others are only fair and are 
not carefully placed. 

One of the most famous monu¬ 
ments outside of New York City 
is the bronze statue of Abraham 
Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum in the 
Court House Park in Newark, 
New Jersey. 

Shade Trees.—A word should be 
said about trees in the city. It is 
estimated that there are a million 
or more trees in New York City. 


Brown Bros. 

Soldiers’ and Sailors’ monument, Riverside 
Drive, New York City. 


Fifth Avenue. Even this avenue 
is the scene of constant change. 
New structures are under way all 
the time to accommodate the host 
of shoppers who look to this street 
as the home of the finest merchan¬ 
dise to be had. 

Memorials in the City.—.Scattered 
throughout the city are many mon¬ 
uments and memorials of various 
kinds. These range from bronze 
plates on buildings to the great 
tomb erected on Riverside Drive 
in memory of Ulysses S. Grant. 
Some of these memorials are very 
beautiful and well placed to dis¬ 
play their own beauty, also to add 
to the charm of their surround¬ 


Brown Bros. 

Grant’s Tomb on Riverside Drive, New 
York City. 








PLANNING THE CITY 


149 


In the suburban cities there are a 
great many trees. Some of the 
residential towns have the appear¬ 
ance of forests when viewed from 
a height in the summer. It may 
be impossible to have trees in 
a busy down-town street. * In 
home sections there can be trees, 
however. It should be every 
city dweller’s duty to plant 
trees wherever possible and pro¬ 
tect those that are already grow¬ 
ing on the streets and in the 
parks. 

The City Beautiful.—It is to be 

regretted that nearly all of our 
cities in America lack a good plan. 
They have grown so rapidly that 


the idea of city planning has 
only come when conditions have 
reached such a bad state that very 
little could be done to change lay¬ 
outs of streets or the character of 
buildings in many of the principal 
streets. Let us hope that the 
‘ ‘ City Beautiful ” may ever be in 
the minds of the city builders of 
the future. In parts of the cities 
that are yet to be built may there 
be wide streets, roomy sidewalks, 
many parks, beautiful buildings, 
well-placed public memorials, and 
shade - trees and wide lawns in 
front of the homes; in short, may 
the city he a place where living is 
a pleasure. 


Questions 


I. There are many crooked streets in 
the old parts of cities. Why? 

II. What are the advantages of fine 
parkways in a city? 

III. Some people prefer to live in the 
country, others in the city. Give argu¬ 
ments that each might use to support his 
judgment. 


IV. What is meant by improving the 
water front? 

V. How has automobile bus travel 
helped suburban towns? 

VI. The problems of life in New York 
City are increasing every day. Explain. 

VII. What are some of the things that 
add to the beauty of New York City? 


150 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX I 

Leading Dates in Histoky of Metropolitan District 


1609 Henry Hudson discovered the Hud¬ 
son River. 

1618 Farmers settled in what is now Hud¬ 
son and Bergen Counties, N. J. 

1626 First Permanent Settlement in New 
Netherlands or Manhattan Island. 

1626 Manhattan Island purchased from 
the Indians by Peter Minuit. 

1633 First wooden church erected in New 
York at 39 Pearl Street. 

1642 First tavern or public meeting place 
was built on the site of 73 Pearl 
Street. 

1653 A “waal” was built along what is 
now Wall Street. 

1648 First fire warden appointed in New 
Amsterdam “to inspect the chim¬ 
neys between the fort and fresh¬ 
water pond.” 

1657 First street was paved in New Am¬ 
sterdam. 

1664 New Amsterdam taken by the Brit¬ 
ish. 

1664 King Charles II of England granted 
all the Dutch land in America to the 
Duke of York. The name of New 
Amsterdam changed to New York. 

1664 Elizabethtown (Elizabeth), N. J., set¬ 
tled. 

1665 Thomas Willett of Plymouth ap¬ 
pointed first mayor of New York. 

1666 Newark founded by Robert Treat. 

1673 New York captured by the Dutch 
and renamed New Orange. 

1674 New Orange ceded to England and 
renamed New York. 


1683 New York was first divided into 
wards (six). 

1693* The first printing press set up in 
New York by William Bradford. 

1700 A City Hall was completed at Broad 
and Wall Streets. (New Federal 
Hall.) 

•1754 First city library was founded in 
New York. 

1756 A stage route was started between 
New York and Philadelphia taking 
“three days through only.” 

1762 The streets of New York were first 
lighted at public expense. 

1770 British soldiers destroyed Liberty 
Pole on the site of Park Row Post 
Office. 

1776 Declaration of Independence was 
read to American troops quartered 
in New York. 

1776 British captured New York City. 

1776 Captain Nathan Hale executed as a 
spy by the British. 

1776 Washington’s famous retreat across 
New Jersey. 

1783 British troops left the city of New 
York. (Evacuation Day.) 

1792 Alexander Hamilton selected Pas¬ 
saic Falls as a site of a “City of 
Mills” (Paterson). 

1795 First newspaper was established in 
New York. 

1803 Corner stone of present New York 
City Hall was laid. 

1807 Trial trip of the Clermont, Robert 
Fulton’s steamboat. 


APPENDIX 


151 


1830 A stage line was opened between 
Bowling Green and Bleecker Street. 

1832 First horse railroad in the world 
started on Fourth Avenue, New 
York. 

1835 First gas pipes laid in New York. 

1836 Morris Canal opened in New Jersey. 

1839 John Ryle (Father of the Silk In¬ 
dustry) began manufacturing silk 
in Paterson, N. J. 

1846 First telegraph line between New 
York and Philadelphia opened. 

1858 First message by Atlantic Cable was 
received in New York. 

1865 First paid fire department in New 
York was organized. 

1867 A single-track elevated railroad be¬ 
gan operations from Battery Place 
to 13th Street. 

1874 Morrisania, West Farms, and Kings- 
bridge annexed to New York City. 

1883 First bridge (Brooklyn Bridge) to 
span the East River opened. 


1886 Statue of Liberty unveiled. 

1895 Westchester, Eastchester, Pelham, 
and Wakefield annexed to New York 
City. 

1898 The greater city of New York 
formed by annexing the city of 
Brooklyn, all of Staten Island, and 
Queens County. 

1900 Excavation started for first subway 
in New York City. 

1907 Work commenced on Catskill Water 
Works. 

1908 Hudson River tunnel to Jersey City 
opened. 

1909 The Hudson Fulton Exposition. 

1917 The parade of the 27th Division be¬ 
fore sailing for France. 

1919 The reception to General Pershing 
at the close of the World War. 

1923 The Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the 
Greater City. 


APPENDIX II 


Population op New York City With Its Suburbs 

(U. S. Census Figures as of Jan. 1, 1920) Civil Divisions Comprised Within Metro¬ 
politan District and Territory Adjacent Thereto. 


Metropolitan District {in New York) 
Bronx County (Borough of The 


Bronx) . 732,106 

Kings County (Borough of 

Brooklyn) . 2,018,356 

Nassau County— 

Cedarhurst . 2,838 

East Rockaway. 2,005 

Farmingdale . 2,091 

Floral Park . 2,097 


Freeport. 8,599 

Garden City . 2,420 

Glen Cove. 8,664 

Great Neck. 339 

Hempstead. 39,381 

Lawrence . 2,861 

Long Beach. 282 

Lynbrook . 4,371 

Mineola. 3,016 

North Hempstead. 21,795 

Oyster Bay . 16,097 



















152 


APPENDIX 


Plandome. 

319 

Rockville Center. 

6,262 

Saddle Rock . 

71 

Sands Point. 

284 

Sea Cliff. 

2,108 

Woodsburgh. 

220 

New York County (Borough of 


Manhattan) . 

2,284,103 

Queens County (Borough of 


Queens) . 

469,042 

Richmond County (Borough of 


Richmond) . 

116,531 

Westchester County— 


Ardsley. 

730 

Bronxville. 

3,055 

Dobbs Ferry.. 

4,401 

Eastchester. 

2,808 

Elmsford. 

1,535 

Greenburg. 

3,181 

Hastings. 

5,526 

Irvington . 

2,701 

Larchmont . 

2,468 

Mamaroneck. 

8,368 

Mount Vernon. 

42,726 

New Rochelle . 

36,213 

North Pelham . 

2,385 

Pelham . 

1,056 

Pelham Manor. 

1,754 

Searsdale . 

3,506 

Tarry town . 

5,807 

Tuckahoe . 

3,509 

White Plains. 

21,031 

Yonkers . 

100,176 

Metropolitan District (in New Jersey) 

Bergen County— 


Alpine. 

350 

Bergenfield. 

3,667 

Bogota . 

3,906 

Carlstadt. 

4,472 

Cliffside Park . 

5,709 

Closter . 

1,840 


Cresskill . 942 

Delford. 1,286 

Demarest .. 654 

Dumont . 2,537 

East Rutherford. 5,463 

Edgewater . 3,530 

Englewood . 11,627 

Englewood Clifts. 594 

Fairview. 4,882 

Fort Lee. 5,761 

Hackensack . 17,667 

Harrington Park . 627 

Hasbrouck Heights. 2,895 

Haworth . 748 

Leonia. 2,979 

Little Ferry. 2,715 

Lodi. 9,162 

Lyndhurst .. 9,515 

Moonachie. 1,194 

North Arlington. 1,767 

Northvale . 827 

Norwood. 820 

Old Tappan. 404 

Palisades. 3,833 

Palisades Park —.. 2,633 

Ridgefield . 1,560 

Ridgefield Park. 8,575 

Riverside . 1,077 

Rutherford. 9,497 

Teaneck. 4,192 

Tenafly . 3,585 

Terterboro . 24 

Wallington. 5,715 

Wood Ridge. 1,923 

Essex County— 

Belleville. 15,660 

Bloomfield . 22,019 

East Orange. 50,710 

Glen Ridge. 4,620 

Irvington . 25,480 

Montclair . 28,810 

Newark . 414,524 














































































APPENDIX 


153 


Nutley. 9,421 

Grange City. 33,268 

South Orange . 12,557 

Hudson County— 

Bayonne . 76,754 

East Newark . 3,057 

Guttenberg. 6,726 

Harrison. 15,721 

Hoboken. 68,166 

Jersey City . 298,103 

Kearny . 26,724 

North Bergen. 23,344 

Secaucus. 5,423 

Union . 20,651 

Weehawken . 14,485 

West Hoboken. 40,074 

West New York. 29,926 

Middlesex County— 

East Brunswick. 1,857 

Helmetta. 687 

Highland Park . 4,866 

Metuchen . 3,334 

Milltown. 2,573 

Perth Amboy. 41,707 

Raritan. 5,419 

Roosevelt . .... 11,047 

Sayreville. 7,181 

South Amboy . 7,897 

South River. 6,596 

Spotswood . 704 

Woodbridge. 13,423 

Monmouth County— 

Atlantic Highlands . 1,629 

Highlands. 1,731 

Keansburg . 1,321 

Keyport . 4,415 

Matawan . 3,766 

Middletown . 5,917 

Raritan . 1,659 

Passaic County— 

Clifton . 26,470 

Little Falls . 3,310 


Passaic . 63,841 

Paterson . 135,875 

West Paterson. 1,858 

Union County— 

Clark. 795 

Cranford . 6,001 

Elizabeth . 95,783 

Garwood. 2,084 

Hillside. 5,267 

Kenilworth. 1,312 

Linden . 8,368 

Rahway . 11,042 

Roselle . 5,737 

Roselle Park . 5,438 

• Union . 3,962 

Westfield .— 9,063 

Adjacent Territory Outside Metropolitan 
District {in New York) 

Rockland County— 

Grand-View-on-Hudson. 175 

Nyack . 4,444 

Orangetown . 6,266 

Piermont . 1,600 

South Nyack . 1,799 

Westchester County— 

Harrison. 5,006 

Port Chester . 16,573 

Rye . 6,211 

Adjacent Territory Outside Metropolitan 
District {in New Jersey ) 

Bergen County— 

East Paterson. 2,441 

Emerson . 973 

Garfield. 19,381 

Hillsdale . 1,720 

Maywood . 1,618 

Midland . 2,203 

Rivervale . 583 

Saddle River. 2,845 

Washington . 194 

Westwood. 2,597 









































































154 


APPENDIX 


Essex County— 

Milburn . 

Middlesex County— 

Madison . 

New Brunswick ... 
Monmouth County— 

Holmdel . 

Marlboro . 

Union County— 

Fanwood.. 

Mountainside- 



Scotch Plains . 

2,343 

4,633 

Springfield . 

1,715 

1,808 

32,779 

Summary 



Metropolitan District. 

7,910,415 

1,100 

In city proper. 

5,620,048 

1,710 

Outside . 

2,290,367 


City and Suburban Territory.. 

8,034,349 

724 

Suburban Territory, detailed 


493 

above . 

2,414,301 


APPENDIX III 


Museums in New York City 


AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL 
HISTORY—77th St. between Columbus 
Ave. and Central Park West. O^en, 
free, every day; weekdays, 9 A.M. to 5 
P.M.; Sundays, 1 P.M. to 5 P.M. 

AMERICAN NUMISMATIC SOCIETY— 
Broadway and 156th St. Open daily, 10 
A.M. to 5 P.M. (except Mondays, 1 P.M. 
to 5 P.M.). 

AQUARIUM—Battery Park. Open, free, 
every day; April-Sept., 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.; 
Oct.-March, 10 A.M. to 4 P .M. 

BOTANIC GARDEN, BROOKLYN— 
Flatbush Ave. and Malbone St. (Empire 
Boulevard). Open daily, free. 

BOTANIC GARDEN, N. Y.—Bronx Park, 
north of Pelham Parkway. 0*pen daily, 
free. 

BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS 
AND SCIENCES, CENTRAL MU¬ 
SEUM—Eastern Parkway and Washing¬ 
ton Ave. Open daily, weekdays, 9 A.M. 
to 5 P.M.; Sundays, 2 P.M. to 6 P.M. 
Free (except Mondays and Tuesdays, 
250). Children’s Museum, 185 Brooklyn 


Ave. Free. Open daily, 10 A.M. to 5 
P.M.; Sundays, 2 P.M. to 5 P.M. 

DYCKMAN HOUSE—Broadway and 

204th St. Open daily, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. 
(except Sundays and Mondays, 1 P.M. 
to 5 P.M.). 

HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA— 
Museum and library, 156th St., west of 
Broadway. Open 9 A.M. to 5 P.M., ex¬ 
cept on chief holidays and in August. 

JUMEL MANSION—(Washington’s Head¬ 
quarters)—Edgecomb Ave. and 160th St. 
Free. Open daily and Sunday, 9 A.M. 
to 5 P.M. 

METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART- 
Fifth Ave. and 80th-84th Sts. Open, 
10 A.M. to 5 P.M. the year through, ex¬ 
cept Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, 
when the closing hour will be 6 P.M. The 
opening hour on Sundays is 1 P.M. Free 
daily (except Mondays and Fridays, 
250). 

MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN IN¬ 
DIAN, HEYE FOUNDATION—Broad¬ 
way and 155th St. Free. Open daily, 















APPENDIX 


155 


10 A.M. to 5 P.M. (except Sundays and 
holidays, 1 P.M. to 5 P.M.). 

NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
AND MUSETXM—Central Park West 
and 79th St. Open daily, 9 A.M. to 5 
P.M.; Sundays, 2 P.M. to 5 P.M., except 
July-Aug.-Sept. Admission free. Closed 
during August, and on New Year’s Day, 
July 4, and Christmas Day. 

POE COTTAGE—Poe Park, Kingsbridge 
Road, and Grand Boulevard, Bronx. 
Open 'daily. 


VAN CORTLANDT HOUSE—Van Cort- 
landt Park, Broadway and 242nd St., 
Bronx. Free (except Thursday, 25^). 
Open daily, 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. (Sundays, 
2 P.M. to 5 P.M.). 

ZOO, BRONX—Bronx Park. Open daily, 
10 A.M. to half hour before sunset. Free 
(except Mondays and Thursdays, 25^). 
ZOO, BROOKLYN—Prospect Park. Free. 
Open daily. 

ZOO, CENTRAL PARK—Fifth Ave. and 
63rd St. Free, daily. 


APPENDIX IV 

Some of the Great Buildings in the City of New York 


ADAMS BUILDING—61 Broadway. 32 
stories; 424 feet high. 

iEOLIAN BUILDING—34 W. 43rd St. 
18 stories. 

AMERICAN EXPRESS BUILDING—65 
Broadway. 21 stories; 415 feet high. 

AMERICAN SURETY BUILDING—100 
Broadway, corner Pine St. 23 stories; 
306 feet high. 

AMERICAN TELEPHONE & TELE¬ 
GRAPH BUILDING—195 Broadway. 

BANKERS’ TRUST—16 Wall St. 37 
stories; 540 feet high. 

BELNORD APARTMENTS—Broadway 
and 86th St. 12 stories high. 

BOWLING GREEN BUILDING—5-11 
Broadway. 19 stories high. 

BROAD EXCHANGE BUILDING—115 
Broadway. 20 stories; height, 277 feet. 

BUSH TERMINAL INTERNATIONAL 
EXHIBIT BLDG.—132 W. 42nd St. 30 
stories high. 

CANADIAN PACIFIC BUILDING—342 
Madison Ave. 


CANDLER BUILDING—218-226 W. 42nd 
St. 25 stories; 341 feet high. 

CAPITOL THEATER BUILDING— 
Broadway and 51st St. 

CARNEGIE HALL—Seventh Avenue and 
57th St. 

CHAMBER OF COMMERCEr-65 Liberty 
St. 

CITY HALL—Facing City Hall Park in 
lower Manhattan, near Chambers St. and 
Broadway. Built of white marble and 
completed in 1812. The Mayor’s room 
is on the first floor. Near this spot, in 
the presence of General George Washing¬ 
ton, the Declaration of Independence was 
read to the American Army, July 9, 1776. 
The Governor’s room contains paintings 
and relics of great value. Open to the 
public, 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. 

CITY INVESTING BUILDING—165 
Broadway. 33 stories; 490 feet high. 

COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW 
YORK—140th Street and Amsterdam 
Avenue. 


156 


APPENDIX 


CUNARD STEAMSHIP COMPANY 
BUILDING—25 Broadway. 

EQUITABLE BUILDING—120 Broad¬ 
way. 40 stories; 548 feet high. 

FIFTH AVENUE BUILDING—200 Fifth 
Ave., corner 23rd St. 

FLATIRON BUILDING—949 Broadway, 
corner 23rd St. 20 stories; 286 feet 
high. Said to be the world’s first steel 
skyscraper. 

GARMENT CENTER BUILDINGS—Sev¬ 
enth Ave., between 36th St. and 38th 
St. Group of 4 buildings, 17 to 24 
stories high. 

GRAND CENTRAL PALACE—Lexington 
Ave. and 46th St. 12 stories. 

GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL—On 
42nd St., between Lexington and Madi¬ 
son Avenues. 

HALL OF RECORDS—Center and Cham¬ 
ber Sts., and corner of Lafayette. An 
interesting and noteworthy municipal 
building where the deeds of Manhattan 
real estate are kept. 

HANOVER BANK BUILDING—5 Nas¬ 
sau St., corner Pine St. 22 stories. 

HIDE AND LEATHER BUILDING—100 
Gold St. In 1921 considered the tallest 
concrete building in the country. 18 
stories. 

HUDSON TERMINAL BUILDING—30 
and 50 Church St. 4000 offices; capacity, 
10,000 tenants. The Arcade is a great 
glass-enclosed passageway with shops and 
booths. 

MANHATTAN LIFE INSURANCE 
BUILDING—64-70 Broadway. 23 stor¬ 
ies; 350 feet high. Constructed in 1893; 
at that time the tallest office structure in 
the world. 

METROPOLITAN LIFE BUILDING—1 


Madison Ave. 50 stories high; 700 feet 
in height. 

MUNICIPAL BUILDING—560 feet high, 
with 42 stories. 

MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE BUILD¬ 
ING—32 Nassau St. 

NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE 
BUILDING—13 Wall St. 

PENNSYLVANIA TERMINAL BUILD¬ 
ING—370 Seventh Ave., 31st to 33rd 
Sts. over the Pennsylvania Railroad 
tracks. 

PUBLIC LIBRARY—Fifth Ave. and 42nd 
St. 

SINGER TOWER—149 Broadway, corner 
Liberty St. 612 feet high, 47 stories; 
900 offices; housing 5,000 people. The 
Singer Tower when lighted at night can 
be seen for miles and is one of the sights 
of the city. 

STANDARD OIL BUILDING—26 Broad¬ 
way. 

SUB-TREASURY—Wall St., corner of 
Nassau. 

TIMES BUILDING—Times Square, 
Broadway and 42nd Street. 25 stories; 
476 feet high. 

WHITEHALL BUILDING—17 Battery 
PI. 13 acres of floor space; 32 stories 
and 424 feet high. 

WOOLWORTH BUILDING—233 Broad¬ 
way, corner Barclay St. and Park Place; 
highest building in the world; 792 feet, 
57 stories; cost $13,500,000; has 4,000 
offices, 6,500 windows; 13,000 persons 
work in the building and 50,000 people 
pass in and out of the building every 
week day. 

WORLD’S TOWER BUILDING—110 
West 40th St. 30 stories; 335 feet high. 

WURLITZER BUILDING—120 W. 42nd 
St. 


INDEX 


Accident Prevention Rules, 119 
Alderman, The Board of, 135 
Aquarium, The, 66 
Ashokan Reservoir, 92 
Assembly, The New Jersey, 
136 

Attendance, Compulsor y 
School, 69 

Banks, 122 
Battery, The, 8 
Bayonne, N. J., 34 
Bear Mountain Park, 40 
Bergen, Settlement of, 32 
Bridges in New York, 110 
Bronx, The Borough of The, 
19 

Brooklyn, Borough of, 15 
Brooklyn Water System, 93 
Budget, The City, 135 
Building Inspection, 126 
Building Operations, 125 

Castle Garden, 66 

Catskill Water Supply, The, 91 

Charter, The City, 133 

Cold Storage, 99 

Colleges and Universities, 69 

Connecticut, 43 

Crime, 83 

Crime, Punishment of, 83 
Crime, Result of, 87 
Croton System, Old, 90 

Debtor’s Prison, The, 79 
Delaware Water Shed, 146 
Department of Parks, 72 t 
Docks, Department of, 124 

Education, Board of, 67 
Education on Health, 78 
Elevated Railway, The, 115 
Elizabeth, N. J., 31 
Erie Canal, 9 


Esopus Watershed, 91 
Estimates & Apportionment, 
Board of, 135 

Fire Department, 60 
Fire Losses, 59 
Fire Prevention, 62 
Food and Drug Laws, Pure, 
78-99 

Food Distribution, 94 
Food, Purity of, 97 

Gas and Electricity, Bureau 
of, 102 

Grand Central Station, 2 
Greater New York, Formation 
of, 11 

“Half Moon,” 6 
Harbor, Improvement of New 
York, 143 

Health, Board of, 76 
Health Stations, Baby, 77 
Henry Hudson, 5 
Historic Buildings, 131 
Hoboken, N. J., 35 
Hospitals, City, 80 
Hudson Tubes, 32 

Illness, Cost of, 76 

Jersey City, N. J., 32 
Jersey City Suburbs, 35 

Law Breakers, 83 
Laws, Necessity of, 132 
Legislature, The State, 136 
Libraries, 69 
Lighting, Early, 101 
Lights and Traffic, 103 
Long Island Suburbs, 42 

Manhattan, Borough of, 12 
Manhattan, Settlement of, .6 
157 


Markets, City, 97 
Memorials, 148. 

Metropolitan Area Defined, 2-3 
Minuit, Peter, 6 
Mt. Vernon, N. Y., 42 
Museum of Art, The Metro¬ 
politan, 65 

Nathan Hale, 25 
Natural History, Museum of, 
64 

Newark, N. J., 26 
Newark, N. J., Suburbs, 30 
Newark, Port of, 30 
New Netherlands, 6 
Newspapers, 107 
New York, A Garden, 45 
New York, Industries of,. 
121 

Night Schools, 68 
Nurses, Training of, 80 

Omnibuses, 117 
Orphans, Care of, 81 
Oyster Bay, 43 

Palisade Interstate Park, 39 
Parks of New York, 74 
Parkways, 139 
Paterson, N. J., 36 
Paterson, N. J., Suburbs, 37 
Paterson, William, 36 
Pequannock Watershed, 30 
Plan, The 1807 City, 138 
Plants and Structures, Depart¬ 
ment of, 123 
Play, 71 

Play Places, Care of, 75 
Police, Department of, 56 
Police, Duty of, 56 
Police Squads, 58 
Policemen, Training of, 59; 
Port Authority, 144 
Prisons, 84 


158 


INDEX 


Prison Term, 86 
Public Schools, The, 67 

Queens, The Borough of, 20 
Queens Water System, 93 

Radio Broadcasting, 106 
Richmond, The Borough of, 21 
Roosevelt, Theodore, 42 
Russell Sage Foundation, 145 

Schoharie Watershed, 91 
Sewers, 54 

Shandaken Tunnel, 91 

Silk City, The, 37 

Skyscrapers, The, 129 

Snow Removal, 54 

Special Classes in Schools, 81 

Staten Island, 21 

Streets, The New York, 117 


Street Cleaners, 49 
Street Flushing, 53 
Subways, 115 

Telegraph, The, 106 
Telephone, The, 105 
Tenement Laws, 128 
Traffic, Regulation of, 57 
Transit Commission, 124 
Treat, Robert, 27 
Trees, 148 
Tuberculosis, 77 
Tunnels in New York, 112 

United States Congress, 134 

Vehicular Tunnel, 112 

Wall Street, Origin ctf, 8 
Wanaque Watershed, 30 


Waste, Collection of, 50 
Waste, Disposal of, 51 
Waste, Kinds of, 49 
Water, City Systems, 89 
Water, Purifying of, 92 
Water Supply, 89 
Water, Uses of, 88 
Waterfront, The Harbor, 108 
Weights and Measures, Bu 
reau of, 100 
White Way, The, 101 
Wireless, Telephone and Tele 
graph, 106 

Yonkers, N. Y., 41 
York, Duke of, 7 

Zoning and Building, 128 
Zoning Law, 128-147 
Zoological Park, The, 66 























































































































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